Here are 93 books that A Ritual of Bone fans have personally recommended if you like
A Ritual of Bone.
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I published my first book in 2017 and I’m currently working on book number 11. In that time, I’ve got to know some great indie authors and read some great indie fantasy. These five titles are a selection. I could easily have done this exercise ten times over with different authors and titles. But if you’re looking to see what indie fantasy has to offer, or simply searching for your next engrossing read, I think these will do the trick.
I love history and fantasy and this book offers both, with a Viking Age inspired epic fantasy.
Brother and sister Bjorn and Aelthena find their world under attack in a book full of danger, with plenty of plot twists. A well written first book in the series, with a realistic dark age setting.
A throne in peril. A tragic betrayal. Two heirs struggling to save their land. A prophesied war engulfing the world...
Bjorn, youngest heir to the Mad Jarl of Oakharrow,has always felt more at ease with a quill than a sword. Yet when calamity strikes his family, he draws a blade and leads a company of warriors into the cold mountains in pursuit of a mysterious foe. Though he seeks vengeance, an ancient power stirs within him, and the whispers of prophecy beckon him toward an ominous destiny...
Aelthena, Bjorn's sister, was born with the aptitude to lead, and she's eager…
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…
I published my first book in 2017 and I’m currently working on book number 11. In that time, I’ve got to know some great indie authors and read some great indie fantasy. These five titles are a selection. I could easily have done this exercise ten times over with different authors and titles. But if you’re looking to see what indie fantasy has to offer, or simply searching for your next engrossing read, I think these will do the trick.
Grimdark fantasy is a favourite of mine, full of morally ambiguous, vivid characters. The Heresy Within is a great example of this.
Yes, there is a fascinating world and enticing plot. But these are characters who are just fun to spend time with. The author pulls no punches in this series, so if dark storylines are not your thing, pick a different recommendation.
As any warrior will tell you; even the best swordsman is one bad day away from a corpse. It's a lesson Blademaster Jezzet Vel'urn isn't keen to learn. Chased into the Wilds by a vengeful warlord, Jezzet makes it to the free city of Chade. But instead of sanctuary all she finds is more enemies from her past.Arbiter Thanquil Darkheart is a witch hunter for the Inquisition on a holy crusade to rid the world of heresy. He's also something else; expendable. When the God Emperor himself gives Thanquil an impossible task, he knows he has no choice but to…
I published my first book in 2017 and I’m currently working on book number 11. In that time, I’ve got to know some great indie authors and read some great indie fantasy. These five titles are a selection. I could easily have done this exercise ten times over with different authors and titles. But if you’re looking to see what indie fantasy has to offer, or simply searching for your next engrossing read, I think these will do the trick.
CF Welburn writes beautifully, and this book is no exception.
We begin with a revenge plot, but this story takes us in unexpected directions. There is an air of mystery around Oben’s journey to take revenge on his Viking-inspired enemies – is he an agent of prophecy? How will his experiences change him, and those he meets?
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
I published my first book in 2017 and I’m currently working on book number 11. In that time, I’ve got to know some great indie authors and read some great indie fantasy. These five titles are a selection. I could easily have done this exercise ten times over with different authors and titles. But if you’re looking to see what indie fantasy has to offer, or simply searching for your next engrossing read, I think these will do the trick.
Another book that leans into the grimdark genre but also with the ambitious scope of epic fantasy.
The world is human, but with some pretty terrifying creatures in it. The character work is excellent – each of the three POVs is a complex individual, an outsider, and none are heroes. But each is being pushed by a plot that suggests something terrible is going to happen if they don’t get their collective acts together.
Lannick deVeers used to be somebody. A hero, even. Then, he ran afoul of the kingdom’s most powerful general and the cost he paid was nearly too much to bear. In the years that followed, his grief turned him into a shadow of his former self, and he spent his days drowning his regrets in tankards of ale. But now an unexpected encounter casts Lannick upon an unlikely path to revenge. If he can just find the strength to overcome the many mistakes of his past, he can seize the chance to become a hero once more. And with an…
“Hope in dark places” has been the theme of my life, beginning at age 17 when my parents disowned me for my faith. I’ve walked through the “valley of the shadow of death” twice, battling cancer, and endured many other struggles, which everyone faces at some time in their lives. Reading Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey as a teen gave me the courage to face the darkness, and so the characters in the stories I write and prefer to read do likewise.
I confess, I was a bit nervous when I began this book because the main character was not very sympathetic. But Hette’s situation is so heart-wrenching (literally, because a sorcerer has stolen her heart) I kept reading to see what happened. Her journey to recover her heart is much more than a physical adventure, though I could taste the grit and mud, shivered with cold, and sweated from the unbearable heat she struggled through. It was a joy watching this young queen learn important life lessons in totally unexpected places. I felt as if I was learning and growing along with Hette, making the reading of this book a completely satisfying experience.
Come to Germania, where a clockwork heart rules and a fool advises–and a laugh can bring both to their knees.
When Princess Hette refuses a sorcerer's proposal, he retaliates by stealing her heart—literally.
Desperate to resist his influence, Hette makes herself emotionless, stifling all feelings until she can find her heart and win it back. Only Konrad, the despised Court Fool, knows where to find the sorcerer, and he has his own curse to battle.
Riddles and magic plague their path, including a memory stealing witch, an unbeatable knight, and a magic book that would as soon drown them as…
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like a bunch of different personalities all wrapped up in a trenchcoat. Which one is the dominant me? Maybe funny and cheerful, maybe quiet and reclusive, maybe ambitious or adventurous – or maybe I’m all of these things? I think I’m drawn to witches because they're so surprising: a witch might be helpful, or she might try to eat you. It’s that unpredictability and mystery which intimidates people, so a witch is considered scary – until she’s not – and when I open a book about a witch, I never know what to expect!
This is a hilarious romp following daughters of rival witch families Katy and Delpha as they come to terms with their magic, their families, and each other. As a Kentuckian, I loved seeing Appalachia depicted in such loving, real detail. And yes, there are some outrageous zombie grannies too. This story was such a breath of fresh mountain air.
The magical story of a hex that goes haywire, and the power of friendship to set things right!
In the town of Howler's Hollow, conjuring magic is strictly off-limits. Only nothing makes Delpha McGill's skin crawl more than rules. So when she finds her family's secret book of hexes, she's itching to use it to banish her mama's money troubles. She just has to keep it quieter than a church mouse -- not exactly Delpha's specialty.
Trouble is, Katybird Hearn is hankering to get her hands on the spell book, too. The daughter of a rival witching family, Katy has…
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
I’ve always been a daydreamer – I spent a lot of my childhood imagining the different places I could go if I just crawled through some magical crack in the universe or discovered a hidden tunnel under my bedroom floor. So fantasy has been at the top of my reading list forever. Fantasy does what all great books do, just more explicitly – they take you somewhere new, and by leaving this world behind, they give you a fresh perspective on everything that’s old and familiar. My favorite fantasies take big ideas and play them out in language rich enough to make me love that new and alien place with a passion.
Ursula K. LeGuin was the first writer who taught me that words can transport you not just into other worlds, but into other people. In this book, she continues the story of Tenar, the escaped priestess of the Wizard of Earthsea series, as she adopts and cares for a brutalized child. Of all the Earthsea books, this one is my favorite for the way in which LeGuin takes the seemingly mundane details of Tenar’s life as she struggles to protect Tehanu and turns them into something deeper and more profound than even the magic her companion Ged wielded as the great wizard leader in the earlier books in the series.
The fourth book of Earthsea in a beautiful hardback edition. Complete the collection with A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Furthest Shore.
With illustrations from Charles Vess
In this fourth novel in the Earthsea series, we rejoin the young priestess the Tenar and powerful wizard Ged. Years before, they had helped each other at a time of darkness and danger. Together, they shared an adventure like no other. Tenar has since embraced the simple pleasures of an ordinary life, while Ged mourns the powers lost to him through no choice of his own. Now the two…
I’ve always been drawn to badass female protagonists in fantasy, but the femme fatale has a special place in my heart, and none more so than spies and assassins. Their weapons are a mix of daggers and subterfuge, poison, and seduction. They often straddle the line between cold-hearted villainess and righteous freedom fighter, and that complex morality can make for intriguing internal struggles that coincide nicely with their goal of dismantling corruption, which is not always black and white. Additionally, the aforementioned seduction means that they get to be unapologetically sexual (but only on their terms!). All of this went into Lily’s character.
Tess learns that she is not actually a princess but a decoy, and that the king and queen, who raised her as their child, have hidden the real princess away in a convent for her protection. It would explain why the chancellor taught her the arts of diplomacy, politics, self-defense, and subterfuge and had her build up a tolerance to poison. Despite feeling betrayed by her parents, after they are murdered by a usurper, she has to use all of her skills learned since childhood to reclaim the throne for the actual princess. While Tess is a bit bratty in the beginning (not surprising since she thinks she’s a princess), she develops into a mature (but still snarky) spy. The sequel, Princess at Sea, continues her adventure after restoring her “sister” to the throne.
The Princess Contessa of Constenopolie has just learned of her true identity-that of an orphan adopted and raised as a decoy to protect the real princess. That doesn't make Contessa less of a royal target.
I’ve been fascinated by time travel and speculative stories since I was a child. I grew up with The Tomorrow People and then later was captivated by Sapphire and Steel. While I love reading most genres and have a book blog and book column in the local press, I feel speculative fiction has just that little extra edge. It answers that clichéd questionwhat if? And transports you into magical visions of slightly different worlds. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have. And perhaps, one day, The Storytellers might appear on someone else’s. What a joy that would be!
This book is heartbreaking and magical. I thought at first it was a romance novel, but a speculative twist took me by surprise. I became enthralled in those chapters not wanting to leave them. Not quite believing the brilliance of the premise. My daughter had gone through a very similar situation, so every emotion felt raw, and I completely engaged with Anna’s dilemma. How could she choose what to do? I tentatively told my daughter about it and after reading it, she agreed it was amazing too. The ending, which brought me to tears, is hopeful and poignant. It is such a unique story, but I won’t spoil it by mentioning the theme portrayed in it.
From the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author comes an emotional romance that is "beautifully written and plotted" (Candis).
This is not a typical love story, but it's our love story.
When Anna arrives in a Spanish beach town for a much-needed escape from real life, she isn’t looking for love. Until Adam sweeps her off her feet. There’s no denying their connection, and what begins as a beautiful romance soon becomes a vow to love each other . . . forever.
Years later, cracks have appeared in their marriage. In an attempt to rekindle their fire, they…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
On the surface, my childhood was characterized by 1980s unsupervised country freedom in rural Alberta. Deeper in, my history involved emotional abuse and neglect. I wanted nothing more than to be seen and loved for my true self. The library was a refuge, but the fiction section allowed me to find the community I so greatly desired. I was seen and loved by the characters I read. They showed me it was possible to be myself–loudly and audaciously–and still be accepted. I read and now write books that delve into themes of identity, autonomy, and acceptance because I still struggle with these themes today.
I believe you can choose to be kick-ass. Delilah “Lila” Bard eventually chooses to be kick-ass. Eventually, on the surface, this book is about Kell. But Lila has the true character arc. I love that Lila walks the edge: hero or anti-hero?
My own life has been defined by the choices I make. I wasn’t given a lot of opportunities. I didn’t have a lot of luck. I had to make my own luck. Lila makes her own ‘luck’. She turns surviving into an opportunity to thrive because of the choices she makes. She screws up several times, risking her life and others. Even at the end, I’m not sure if she’s a hero. She’s real and attempting to evolve out of a dim past into a bright future in her own unique way. I relate to that.
A stunning collector's edition of the acclaimed novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab.
With an exclusive metallic ink cover, this edition will feature:
* End papers of London * Fan art * A glossary of Arnesian and Antari terms * An interview between author and editor * Original (never before seen!) tales from within the Shades of Magic world
Kell is one of the last Antari-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons. There is Red London, where life and magic are revered, Grey London, without magic and ruled by mad King…
