Books like Daughter of the Burning City

Deep space can be scary, but I consider deep caves to be much more terrifying.

The Luminous Dead has an eerie mission to the depths of a cave on a distant exoplanet—the worst of both worlds! This book follows a non-regulation diver on a dangerous job shrouded in secrets and the enigmatic, untrustworthy voice in her helmet guiding her through the darkness.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for the characters to descend into antagonism and uncertainty about whether the other things lurking in the cave are figments of paranoia or dangerously real. If you like feeling queasy, secondhand claustrophobia, The Luminous Dead is for you.

Now, I understand most people would consider Six of Crows a “heist book,” but can I just say… Inej is a goddess.

Her backstory is truly heartbreakingly powerful and has stuck with me even years after finishing. I loved this duology so much that I got my mother and two sisters to read it, and could rave about it for hours. 

This book is a beautiful execution of slow burn, watching a character grow and come into his own and realize that he loves and is loved. The world-building is fantastic, and the story keeps you reading until you realize it's four in the morning and you've got a long day ahead of you. I loved the main character, his love interests, the history, and recent war that provide the setting and drive for much of what happens. It's a beautiful love story, a wonderful fantasy, a fantastic combination of both genres.

Another great book rife with tension and terror, about a team who go in search of what killed their friends and loved ones, a nightmare recorded on video but hard to believe, a terror buried in the depths of the Marianas Trench. I love this fascinating take on mermaids, how the book keeps you on tenterhooks the whole time, waiting to see what will happen, who is next, and what sort of monsters we haven't even seen yet.

This is one of the best books of redemption I've ever read, about a man who did some truly horrible, some would say unforgivable things, and has been working hard the past several years to make amends for his wrongs, a journey he continues even as he meets the man who just might be the love of his life. All this in a beautifully built fantasy world, and while it is book two in the series it stands on its own just fine. When it comes to tales of redemption and forgiveness, though, of facing a sordid past and working to overcome it, this book continues to set the bar for me.

Retellings are some of my favorite fantasy stories as they rely on new, inventive ways to spin the same yarn. Little Thieves is a reimagining of the Goose Girl from the perspective of the original villain as our main character. Vanja is the goddaughter of Death and Fortune, two of the goddesses in a pantheon with deities who represent abstract concepts like Time and Justice. 

Vanja has spent her life conning and stealing like when she steals the identity of her former friend, Princess Giselle, and steals from the haughty nobles. She maintains these three identities by using magic pearls that change her appearance. But the story truly begins when Vanja is cursed to either return what she has stolen or be consumed by her greed.

To me, what’s most striking about this book, a queer retelling of “Snow White,” is that in addition to the POV of the Snow White character, Lynet, there’s also narration from Mina, the Evil Queen insert. Only in this retelling Mina isn’t a superficial villain.

In fact, she’s no villain at all. I find her to be a complex heroine, and her relationship with Lynet is equally rich and complicated. I was compelled by Lynet and Mina’s struggles under the weight of feminine and royal expectations. Despite their conflicts, they are more alike than they are different, and their journey to realizing this was so satisfying.

The sapphic romance between Lynet and a surgeon provides a lovely subplot that adds to, rather than distracts from, the main storyline. One of my all-time favorite sapphic retellings.

Set in a fantasy world inspired by North African folklore and mythology, A River of Royal Blood creates the perfect environment for magic not seen in the mainstream literary fiction.

Within the story, magic plays an integral part in the conflict known as the “Rival Heir” tradition, where the female heirs to the throne must fight one another to the death when the youngest turns of age. Only one of them can be queen. The magic is their greatest tool but is somehow Eva’s greatest curse as no one knows how to use her magic, least of all her. And when more than just her older sister wants her dead because of her powerful magic, I was on the edge of my seat and impatiently awaiting a sequel.

I love this book and keep it on my desk because opening it to any page is to be invited to share the humanity of a writer who knows how to deliver a universal tale through a deeply personal story. Thomas is the master of the short form, creating whole chapters in half a page and taking on grief in this slender, transformative volume.  

Efficiency has become the catchword and hell-hound in our society. And in Hiroko Oyamada’s mordant fable, efficiency has taken on the form of a sprawling factory, a city unto itself, which is regulating, ordering, and arranging its brave new world one rote directive after the next.

Here’s what I saw when metaphysically touring the interior: An emaciated Kafka stooped over one of the desks, half-obscured behind a tower of documents, staring out bleary-eyed at the ledge of a window where black birds are gathering.

Across from him, a nerve-bitten Nietzsche paces, furiously smoking a cigarette, and refashioning his notions of the abyss to fit the conditions in which he finds himself atrophying. The abyss, now an omnipotent complex, an unnamable morass with a bottomless capacity for soul-feeding.

People are no longer staring into the abyss, they are wearing it, breathing it, speaking it, and perpetuating its slow-drip filtration to the… show more.