When compiling this reading list for myself, it was hard to find books that weren’t YA. If you’ve read any Fantasy books that would fit with this list please share them with me! > Contact Us
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A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
By Roseanne A. Brown
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy
The first in a gripping fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction—from debut author Roseanne A. Brown. Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi, Renée Ahdieh, and Sabaa Tahir.
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom.
But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.
When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?
Pawn
By Angela J. Ford
>Indie Author
Genre: Classic Fantasy
A day will come, when curses will be broken, the lost shall be found, the found shall be lost, and the rift between mortal and celestial will cease to exist.
– Prophecy of Erinyes
Maeve of Carn is a warrior of warriors, but she’s no hero.
Born with superhuman strength she sells her abilities to mercenaries and warlords in exchange for wealth.
Until the night of the full moon. . .
In the midst of a raid, led by the warlord she just might be falling in love with, Maeve is taken by the Dark Fae.
After leaving her to rot in the dungeon of the damned they offer her a deal. Freedom.
If she finds a divine relic rumored to have the power to break all curses.
Left with no other choice, Maeve sets off on a perilous quest, guided by the Scholar.
Set in an expansive fantasy world with monsters, magic and mysteries, the Night of the Dark Fae series is an epic fantasy trilogy birthed from the mind of International Best Selling Author, Angela J. Ford. Readers who love action, adventure, romance, sword and sorcery will be held captive by this series.
A Song Below Water
By Bethany C. Morrow
Genre: YA Mermaid
Bethany C. Morrow’s A Song Below Water is the story for today’s readers — a captivating modern fantasy about black mermaids, friendship, and self-discovery set against the challenges of today’s racism and sexism.
In a society determined to keep her under lock and key, Tavia must hide her siren powers.
Meanwhile, Effie is fighting her own family struggles, pitted against literal demons from her past. Together, these best friends must navigate through the perils of high school’s junior year.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice at the worst possible moment.
Soon, nothing in Portland, Oregon, seems safe. To save themselves from drowning, it’s only Tavia and Effie’s unbreakable sisterhood that proves to be the strongest magic of all.
“An enthralling tale of black girl magic and searing social commentary ready to rattle the bones.” — Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles
A Phoenix First Must Burn
Edited by Patrice Caldwell
Genre: YA Fiction about Girls & Women
Sixteen tales by bestselling and award-winning authors that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic.
Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs, have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that centers Black women and gender nonconforming individuals. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters in which you cannot help but see yourself reflected. Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels: the heroines of A Phoenix First Must Burn shine brightly. You will never forget them.
The Fifth Season
By N. K. Jemisin
Genre: Fantasy, SciFi
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this “intricate and extraordinary” Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)
This is the way the world ends…for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.
Riot Baby
By Tochi Onyebuchi
Genre: Fantasy, SciFi
“Riot Baby, Onyebuchi’s first novel for adults, is as much the story of Ella and her brother, Kevin, as it is the story of black pain in America, of the extent and lineage of police brutality, racism and injustice in this country, written in prose as searing and precise as hot diamonds.”—The New York Times
“Riot Baby bursts at the seams of story with so much fire, passion and power that in the end it turns what we call a narrative into something different altogether.”—Marlon James
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor’s son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven’t happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands.
Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.
Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.
“[Tochi] Onyebuchi has woven a story as uplifting as it is heartbreaking, an epic ode to the future and past, tiny acts of resistance, love, and the wild unstoppable sweep of revolution.”—Daniel José Older
The Black God’s Drums
By P. Djèlí Clark
Genre: Fantasy, SciFi
Rising science fiction and fantasy star P. Djèlí Clark brings an alternate New Orleans of orisha, airships, and adventure to life in his immersive debut novella The Black God’s Drums.
Alex Award Winner!
In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air–in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.
But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.
Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.
“A sinewy mosaic of Haitian sky pirates, wily street urchins, and orisha magic. Beguiling and bombastic!”—New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld
Binti
By Nnedi Okorafor
Genre: SciFi
“Prepare to fall in love with Binti.” —Neil Gaiman
Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.
If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself — but first she has to make it there, alive.
Given
By Nandi Taylor
Genre: YA, Sword & Sorcery
Yenni has never been this far from home. With only her wits, her strength, and her sacred runelore, the fierce Yirba warrior princess is alone in the Empire of Cresh. It’s a land filled with strange magics and even stranger people—all of whom mistrust anyone who’s different. But Yenni will prove herself, and find the cure for her father’s wasting illness. She will not fail.
No one warned her about the dragons. Especially not about him.
Yet there is something powerful and compelling about the violet-black dragon known as Weysh. In human form he’s muscular, beautiful—and completely infuriating. What kind of arrogant creature claims a stranger as his Given; as his destined mate? Yenni is no man’s—or dragon’s—plaything. But other magics must be at work here, because Weysh might just be her best hope at finding the answers she seeks.
Only now Yenni can’t tell if she’s fighting an attraction to a dragon . . . or fighting fate itself.
Master of Poisons
By Andrea Hairston
Genre: Epic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery
Award-winning author Andrea Hairston weaves together African folktales and postcolonial literature into unforgettable fantasy in Master of Poisons
The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find.
Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile.
Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts, and uncertain men.
Awash in the rhythms of folklore and storytelling and rich with Hairston’s characteristic lush prose, Master of Poisons is epic fantasy that will bleed your mind with its turns of phrase and leave you aching for the world it burns into being.
Blades of Magic
By Terah Edun
>Indie Author
Genre: YA, Sword & Sorcery
It is not a peaceful time in the Algardis Empire. War is raging between the mages and seventeen-year-old Sara Fairchild will be right in the middle of it.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
Sara is the daughter of a disgraced imperial commander, executed for desertion.Sara is also the best duelist and hand-to-hand combatant in Sandrin. She lives quietly with her family’s shame but when challenged about her family’s honor, her opponent inevitably loses.
On the night she finds out her father’s true last actions, she takes the Mercenary Guilds’ vows to serve in the emperor’s army. Using her quick wits and fierce fighting skills, she earns a spot in the first division.
There she discovers secrets the mages on both sides would prefer stay hidden. Dark enemies hunt her and soon it’s not just Sara questioning the motivation behind this war.
While fighting mages, blackmailing merchants and discovering new friends, Sara comes across something she’s never had before – passion. The question is – can she fight for her empress against a mage who might unwittingly claim her heart?
This is year one of the Initiate Wars. Sara is hoping it doesn’t become the year she dies.
The Sound of Stars
By Alechia Dow
Genre: YA, Scifi
Can a girl who risks her life for books and an alien who loves pop music work together to save humanity? A beautiful and thrilling debut novel for fans of Marie Lu and Veronica Roth.
Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the deaths of one-third of the world’s population.
Today, seventeen-year-old Ellie Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. With humans deemed dangerously volatile because of their initial reaction to the invasion, emotional expression can be grounds for execution. Music, art and books are illegal, but Ellie still keeps a secret library.
When young Ilori commander M0Rr1S finds Ellie’s library, he’s duty-bound to deliver her for execution. The trouble is, he finds himself drawn to human music and in desperate need of more.
Humanity’s fate rests in the hands of an alien Ellie should fear, but M0Rr1S has a potential solution—thousands of miles away. The two embark on a wild and dangerous journey with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while creating a story and a song of their own that just might save them both.
Song of Blood & Stone
By L. Penelope
Genre: Historical Fantasy
A Time Magazine Best Fantasy Book of 2018
L. Penelope’s Song of Blood & Stone is a treacherous, thrilling, epic fantasy about an outcast drawn into a war between two powerful rulers.
The kingdoms of Elsira and Lagrimar have been separated for centuries by the Mantle, a magical veil that has enforced a tremulous peace between the two lands. But now, the Mantle is cracking and the True Father, ruler of Lagrimar and the most powerful Earthsinger in the world, finally sees a way into Elsira to seize power.
All Jasminda ever wanted was to live quietly on her farm, away from the prying eyes of those in the nearby town. Branded an outcast by the color of her skin and her gift of Earthsong, she’s been shunned all her life and has learned to steer clear from the townsfolk…until a group of Lagrimari soldiers wander into her valley with an Elsiran spy, believing they are still in Lagrimar.
Through Jack, the spy, Jasminda learns that the Mantle is weakening, allowing people to slip through without notice. And even more troubling: Lagrimar is mobilizing, and if no one finds a way to restore the Mantle, it might be too late for Elsira. Their only hope lies in uncovering the secrets of the Queen Who Sleeps and Jasminda’s Earthsong is the key to unravel them.
Thrust into a hostile society and a world she doesn’t know, Jasminda and Jack race to unveil an ancient mystery that might offer salvation.
Trouble the Saints
By Alaya Dawn Johnson
Genre: Fantasy
“Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story…in a word: awesome.” —N.K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season
The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.
Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.
Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.
Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?
Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.
A Blade So Black
By L.L. McKinney
Genre: YA Fairy Tales
“A Blade So Black is the fantasy book I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”
—Angie Thomas, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Hate U Give
For fans of Marissa Meyer, L.L. McKinney’s A Blade So Black delivers an irresistible urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland… but it’s not the Wonderland you remember.
The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she’s trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew.
Life in real-world Atlanta isn’t always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice’s handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she’ll need to use everything she’s learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head… literally.
Debut author L.L. McKinney delivers an action-packed twist on an old classic, full of romance and otherworldly intrigue.
Pride
By Ibi Zoboi
Genre: YA Diversity & Multicultural Fiction
Pride and Prejudice gets remixed in this smart, funny, gorgeous retelling of the classic, starring all characters of color, from Ibi Zoboi, National Book Award finalist and author of American Street. This young adult novel is an excellent choice for accelerated tween readers in grades 7 to 8, especially during homeschooling. It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.
Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.
But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.
In a timely update of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, critically acclaimed author Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic.
A Taste of Honey
By Kai Ashante Wilson
Genre: LGBT Fantasy
A Taste of Honey is the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus finalist novella that N. K. Jemisin calls “a love story as painful as it is beautiful and complex”. Find out why Wired named it one of the 20 Best Books of the Decade!
Long after the Towers left the world but before the dragons came to Daluça, the emperor brought his delegation of gods and diplomats to Olorum. As the royalty negotiates over trade routes and public services, the divinity seeks arcane assistance among the local gods.
Aqib bgm Sadiqi, fourth-cousin to the royal family and son of the Master of Beasts, has more mortal and pressing concerns. His heart has been captured for the first time by a handsome Daluçan soldier named Lucrio. In defiance of Saintly Canon, gossiping servants, and the furious disapproval of his father and brother, Aqib finds himself swept up in a whirlwind gay romance. But neither Aqib nor Lucrio know whether their love can survive all the hardships the world has to throw at them.
By Sea & Sky
By Antoine Bandele
>Indie Author
Genre: Fantasy
With no magic, no brawn, and no pirate crew, Zala seeks to steal back the one treasure that matters to her most: her husband.
To succeed she needs a ship—and not just any ship, but the latest, secret invention by the Vaaji Empire. An airship.
Zala will have to use her wits to overcome scoundrels and nobles alike on her journey through the clouds.
But if she’s smart enough, she may just have what it takes to save her husband—and go down in history as the first sky pirate.
Delve into a pirate fantasy inspired by the West Indies, The Swahili Coast, and Arabia, where Zala will encounter ruthless raiders, arrogant aristocrats, and imperial secrets.
Void Legion
By Terry C. Simpson
>Indie Author
Genre: LitRPG
Epic players do epic things. A fantasy world, a unique class, an undefeated dungeon. Can Andre Taylor become epic enough to win?
Misfortune comes in fours for sixteen-year-old Andre Taylor. Each one worse than the next. He had to quit school, quit gaming, and his father died. Life sucked. It couldn’t get worse. Until a car accident left his pregnant mother in a coma.
To pay for his mother’s hospital care, Dre must excel at an alpha test of Ataxia Online 2: Void Legion, a Simulated Reality Multiplayer Online Game. Now, he’s thrust into the fantasy world of Mikander, where powerful factions want him dead, Player Killers hunt him, a lethal plague sweeps across the land, and nightmare creatures from a voidstorm stand in his path.
Can Dre survive against overwhelming odds and unearth the secrets of the Void Legion? Can he become adept in his chosen class, the cannoneer? Can he convince a girl who wants to duel him to the death to fight on his side? He must. Or a fate worse than death awaits.
Note: Includes MMORPG game terminology, some profanity, adult themes, and graphic situations.
Death Marked
By Michael La Ronn, Justin Sloan
>Indie Author
Genre: Psychic Suspense
To be reunited with his lost love, Rohan seeks out help to open a portal to the afterlife.
When he’s betrayed and nearly killed, he finds he now has mysterious powers. Good thing, too, since his betrayer seeks to destroy the world by melding it with the afterlife. Rohan won’t give up on his love, but in the process must use his new powers to fight evil and save us all.
One thing’s for sure: Not even Death can stop true love.
Tavern
By Deston J. Munden
>Indie Author
Genre: Humorous Fantasy
Information, Power. Respect.
Xelnath of the Gnarled Root—a tavern owner, information broker, healer, and guildmaster of the Blackwind Company—has found a place, far better than the forest from which he came in the magical metropolis and city-state of Lladad in the Magiian Empire.
When a simple act of kindness draws the ire of a troubled assassin, his love-stricken Archmage father and an army of magically constructed golems, Xel must scheme with vipers of the high court, mingle with royalty at the castle, blackmail drug dealers in the slums, and fight assassins and mercenaries in the streets.
He needs to lean on the support of his motley crew of a dark elf assassin, a dragon pirate, a high elf royal, and a talking dog artificer to keep him from his own inner demons and doubts.
Perfect for fans of World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Brandon Sanderson, Michael J. Sullivan, Nicholas Eames, and Scott Lynch.
The Exercise of Vital Powers
By Ian Gregoire
>Indie Author
Genre: Coming of Age Fantasy
The cautionary tale of a precocious anti-heroine possessing great magical abilities who must learn the dangers and consequences of abusing power.
Get ahead of the game and discover this hidden gem of a fantasy debut, from the next big thing in indie publishing, before all the hipsters jump on the bandwagon.
(Semi-finalist in the 2017 SPFBO competition)
Some Lessons Must Be Learned The Hard Way.
Since its inception, The Order has been dedicated to the prevention of the misuse and abuse of magic. For seven decades this mandate has guaranteed peace and stability throughout The Nine Kingdoms. But a potential threat to the peace has emerged, and its source is much closer to home than the leadership of The Order may realise.
Arrogant, manipulative, confrontational and angry. Undesirable qualities in a person at the best of times, but more so in a young woman born with the power to bring kingdoms to their knees. Kayden Jayta, precocious apprentice of The Order, is all these things and more, yet wholly unwilling to acknowledge and rectify her many troubling traits.
Unbeknown to anyone, Kayden’s resolute determination to join the ranks of The Order is born of a secret that puts her priorities at odds with the precepts of the organisation, setting her inexorably on a collision course with the most powerful institution in The Nine Kingdoms.
If Kayden is to be dissuaded from walking the path she has chosen, averting tragic consequences in the process, two unanswered questions must be answered: What is the dark secret guiding Kayden’s actions? And, why has a legendary figure within The Order, with a secret of her own, taken undue interest in Kayden’s future?
Saving Eden
By K.R.S. McEntire
>Indie Author
Genre: YA Fantasy
A dystopian society. A boy who’s given up on the world. A girl with the power to save it.
Sixteen-year-old Angela and her father are the last survivors on Earth. She dreams of adventure and romance but only finds it in books. In the confines of her garden paradise, she’s untouched by contaminants that caused the rest of humanity to mutate into murderous beasts or die. But staying in the garden sure gets lonely.
When a seventeen-year-old boy stumbles upon Angela’s home with news about a thriving community, his presence challenges everything she knew about the world. She dares to leave her garden for the first time to find a better home.
In the authoritarian society that she finds, the line between man and mutant is murkier than she expected. Her father is in danger, and the men tasked with protecting the settlement are extremely fond of murder. With their lives on the line, can Angela create one last happy ending in a hopeless world?
Fans of dystopian societies, post-apocalyptic futures, diverse characters, fantasy, and coming-of-age adventures with heart will fall in love with this post-apocalyptic fairy tale.
The Wolf Queen
By Cerece Rennie Murphy
>Indie Author
Genre: Fantasy, Folklore
To fight for her future, she must first discover the magic of her past
Once great and powerful sorcerers, the Amasiti were hunted to the brink of extinction by the Hir and his followers. For four hundred years, their legacy faded from memory waiting for the hope of Aferi to be renewed…
In the Land of Yet
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest
A young woman lives alone.
Forced to fend for herself after the brutal murder of her family, Ameenah Yemini has made a life for herself as a master tanner and farmer, only venturing into the world to earn her living then return to the safety and seclusion of her home.
Until a chance encounter brings her work to the attention of the powerful Hir
And her careful life begins to unravel.
Drawn to the hidden magic that lingers in everything she touches, the new Hir insists on having her for himself, using the people around her to force Ameenah into his grasp.
When she realizes that her greatest enemy may hold the key to a secret she thought lost to her forever, Ameenah is determined to reclaim her stolen past. But, at what cost? As an ancient power waits to be unleashed, Ameenah’s choices will make the difference between awakening a new magic or delivering it into the hands of evil.
Daughters of Nri
By Reni K’Amayo
>Indie Author
Genre: Fantasy
A gruesome war results in the old gods’ departure from earth. The only remnants of their existence lie in two girls. Twins, separated at birth. Goddesses who grow up believing that they are human. Daughters Of Nri explores their epic journey of self-discovery as they embark on a path back to one another.
Strong-willed Naala grows up seeking adventure in her quiet and small village. While the more reserved Sinai resides in the cold and political palace of Nri. Though miles apart, both girls share an indestructible bond: they share the same blood, the same face, and possess the same unspoken magic, thought to have vanished with the lost gods.
The twin girls were separated at birth, a price paid to ensure their survival from Eze Ochichiri, the man who rules the Kingdom of Nri. Both girls are tested in ways that awaken a mystical, formidable power deep within themselves. Eventually, their paths both lead back to the mighty Eze.
But can they defeat the man who brought the gods themselves to their knees?
Queen of the Conquered
By Kacen Callender
Genre: Historical Fantasy
An engrossing tale of colonialism, conquest and revenge, Queen of the Conquered starts a fantasy series perfect for readers of S. A. Chakraborty, Ken Liu, and Tasha Suri.
On the islands of Hans Lollik, Sigourney Rose was the only survivor when her family was massacred by the colonizers. When the childless king of the islands declares he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney is ready to exact her revenge.
But someone is killing off the ruling families to clear a path to the throne. And as the bodies pile up and all eyes regard her with suspicion, Sigourney must find allies among her prey and the murderer among her peers… lest she become the next victim.
Praise for Queen of the Conquered:
“A storm of a novel as epic as Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo.” –Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Beasts Made Wild
“The book’s absorbing setting, captivating lead, and relevant themes of race and class complement each other with alternating delicacy and savagery.” –NPR Books
“Callender’s first adult novel draws race relations, conquest, magic, and politics into an imaginative, layered story that will keep readers twisting until the end.” –Library Journal
Children of Blood & Bone
By Tomi Adeyemi
Genre: YA Myth & Legend
With five starred reviews, Tomi Adeyemi’s West African-inspired fantasy debut, and instant #1 New York Times Bestseller, conjures a world of magic and danger, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir.
They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.
Now we rise.
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.
But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.
Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.
“A phenomenon.” —Entertainment Weekly
“The epic I’ve been waiting for.” —New York Times-bestselling author Marie Lu
“You will be changed. You will be ready to rise up and reclaim your own magic!” —New York Times-bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton
Email your local Library, request the change you want to see in their catalog!
Our library seems to be lacking in titles that either are written by people of color or feature them as the main character. (as well as diverse reads in general)
I have created a list of books that I would love to read. I searched for most of them, but gave up after more than half the list couldn’t be found.
I would appreciate it if you could add a few of these (or all of them) to your catalog. Thank you!
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
The City We Became (Great Cities #1) by N.K. Jemisin
Akata Witch (Akata Witch, #1) by Nnedi Okorafor
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
Legendborn (Legendborn, #1) by Tracy Deonn
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
A Phoenix First Must Burn by Patrice Caldwell
The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow
Maya and the Rising Dark by Rena Barron
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
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