I am a Canadian writer who has, at one time or another, been a magician, an avid Dungeon & Dragons player, and the creator of fictional worlds where magic is both surprisingly fun and yet hidden in the shadows of our own everyday world. I love it when a writer spins original magic into a familiar world, and I am even more impressed when magic and a new world drag my attention and won’t let me go. These five diverse novels touch on everything I love about magic and storytelling without rehashing the old tropes of wizards, dragons, and fair maidens in distress.
In a pre-revolutionary Boston where magic is outlawed and gets a conjurer sent to prison–or worse–Ethan Kaille makes a living as a thief-taker recovering stolen goods while hiding his skills as a powerful conjurer.
I love the raw honesty of the broken hero and the unique yet familiar setting where a nation is being born while magic spins in the shadows, manipulating, terrifying, and killing. I couldn’t put this book down, and then I powered through the subsequent sequels, always wanting more!
In Thieftaker, D. B. Jackson delivers a thrilling debut tale of magic and intrigue that will leave readers breathless and eager for more Ethan Kaille.
Boston, 1765: In D.B. Jackson's Thieftaker, revolution is brewing as the British Crown imposes increasingly onerous taxes on the colonies, and intrigue swirls around firebrands like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. But for Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker who makes his living by conjuring spells that help him solve crimes, politics is for others…until he is asked to recover a necklace worn by the murdered daughter of a prominent family.
It’s been a long time since I read an original magic system in a novel, and Stewart’s Locus Award-nominated The Bone Shard Daughter caught me completely off guard!
It was so easy to get lost in the dark, fascinating world, interesting yet flawed characters, and a tale that just won’t let go.
The Bone Shard Daughter is an unmissable debut from a major new voice in epic fantasy — a stunning tale of magic, mystery, and revolution in which the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her power and her place on the throne.
"One of the best debut fantasy novels of the year." — BuzzFeed News "An amazing start to a new trilogy." — Culturess "It grabs you by the heart and the throat from the first pages and doesn't let go." — Sarah J. Maas
The emperor's reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
The first time I read this book, I felt like I had slipped sideways into a part of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, to a part of that universe where magic is learned and academia is as fraught with danger as the perilous desert above.
While not set in the universe of Dune, Rahn’s book spins life, death, and the desert into a tale that has dragged me back time and time again to seek out nuance after nuance of the bizarre dark magics that haunt the hero.
Born and orphaned in the Desert, Antronos was subjected to dark magic that forced-merged him with reptiles. Considered exotic by some, repulsive by others, he finds acceptance and respect in the underground civilization of the Temlochti State when he earns the right to practise medicine. Wishing to further his achievement, he enters a graduate program studying longevity. Duped into an act of murder, Antronos must fight to prevent more harm to his rich and powerful clientele—some of whom he feels connected to, perhaps from a previous life. Desperate to prevent losing the family he never knew he had, Antronos must…
I recommend this Hugo Award-winning novel for several reasons, but mostly because it is unlike anything I have ever read. I grew up on the Euro-centric idea of wizards and magic, and Jemisin’s book is anything but.
The magic in this world is like nothing I had ever read about before, and yet it was so grounded in nature that it all made sense immediately. This is a journey I couldn’t step away from until it was done. Be warned! This is the first book in The Broken Earth trilogy. You WILL want to read all three.
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.
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I don’t read a lot of YA fiction (or YA nonfiction, either, for that matter), but this book was recommended by a friend, and I am glad it was. I am definitely NOT this book's target audience, as I am an older male.
This story follows a teenage girl as she deals with all the things that teen girls do, but Vadori weaves together our mundane world with the magic world of the fountain to weave a rich, encaptivating tale.
Careful what you wish for. It just might come true.
Ava Marshall, driven by a desire to learn more about her mother's past, moved across the country to attend St. Augustus. But her mom's secrets will have to wait, because she finds herself instantly hated for her family's connection to her new school and is forced to fight alone against a classmate who is setting Ava up to be expelled.
Fleeing campus, she takes a shortcut to her Gran's house though the forbidden West Woods and discovers a mysterious fountain that has the power to grant a wish and change…
Framed for a murder they didn't commit, six young, rebellious fairies refuse to go quietly into exile and death and instead undertake an impossible quest to prove their innocence and save their families.
Ogres and gnomes and trolls, oh my. This book is a tale of family, friends, and being true to yourself when the rule-makers have other plans for you.
In an underground coal mine in Northern Germany, over forty scribes who are fluent in different languages have been spared the camps to answer letters to the dead—letters that people were forced to answer before being gassed, assuring relatives that conditions in the camps were good.
When an EMP brings down the power grid, Dr. Anna Hastings must learn what it means to be a doctor in a world deprived of almost all technology. She joins devoted father Mark Ryan and his young daughter on a perilous journey across a thousand miles of backcountry trails.
