98 Books Like Dragonflight

I’ve spent years working with women who are expected to be confident, decisive, and polished, but are rarely taught how to build those skills. Through my work in politics, public service, and coaching thousands of women, I’ve seen how small, often invisible habits can keep capable women from being fully heard or respected. What I love most is helping women with the practical, everyday moments, like how to say no without apologizing, set boundaries, and build real influence. I’m passionate about leadership because I’ve watched these shifts change careers and lives, and these books reflect the lessons I come back to again and again.

Children have vivid imaginations, and while mine was initially drawn to science fiction, I discovered my true passion for fantasy upon reading The Hobbit as a teenager. Since that day, escaping into fantasy worlds—whether it be through books, movies, TV, roleplaying, and video games—became my passion and hobby, leading me down many roads, including writing game reviews, a short story, a novel, and an extensive collection of fantasy-related replicas and statues. Ultimately, that endless feeling of wonder and exploration, adventure and danger is what convinced me to become an author; these five books sitting at the top of a long list that inspired me to reach that goal.

I write stories where consequence comes first. I grew up immersed in Greek/Egyptian mythology and fairy tales, but I was always more drawn to the parts they left out. I wanted to know what daily life looked like for someone like Hercules, not just the story beats. Or what happens when the moral of the story isn’t learned. My passion lies in exploring the cost of power, the wounds we carry (that are often excluded from stories), and the myths we create to justify them. I believe the best fantasy doesn’t just help us escape the world, it helps us to look at ours differently.

I was sick as a child and bedridden for several months. This was before 24/7 TV and computers. I began to read A LOT. I read everything and anything that I could find, but my favorite topics were animals and nature. I also read science fiction and fantasy. It’s not a surprise that those topics merged into my writing and life. I currently live on five acres that I’ve left mostly for the wildlife. My nephew calls me his aunt who lives in the forest with reindeer. That is way cooler than my real life, so I’m good with that. All my books have nature and friendship as main themes.

I've been reading science fiction since the age of seven, when I first read Madaleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Then it was Podkayne of Mars by Robert Heinlein, A Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, etc. My list is in honour of Women’s History Month and to recognize the gifted female writers of the past who faced discrimination in the publishing world and yet still triumphed. When I started writing fiction, with my medical background, it had to be about medicine. Thus The Grace Lord series was born. My protagonist, Dr. Grace Lord, is a fearless and compassionate combat surgeon.

As well as being a novelist, I am also a script editor for film and TV. I specialise in thriller narratives and big themes in screenwriting, so it's no accident I am drawn to them in fiction too. Dystopian worlds offer such a rich backdrop for the BIG questions and observations. By putting new societies and threats under the microscope in stories, it can hold a mirror up to what's going on in real life. I think of dystopian novels as being akin to the canaries in the coal mine: they are not only cathartic, they sound the warning bell on where we are going as a society ourselves.

I’m drawn to science fiction that forces characters to confront the limits of their own understanding, especially when faced with someone labeled as an enemy. These are the stories that taught me how fragile judgment can be, and how costly it is to mistake difference for threat. I return again and again to books where communication across cultures, species, or systems is difficult, incomplete, and often arrives too late. What fascinates me most is not conflict itself, but the moral effort required to truly see the other. These novels shaped how I think about empathy, memory, and responsibility, and they continue to influence the kinds of stories I write.

In my day job, I’m immersed either with technical equipment or managing people and I enjoy the duality of both challenges. It’s difficult to say which I like best, but because part of my job is people focused, I’ve enjoyed learning to understand the social and interpersonal dynamics between coworkers and clients alike. So books with strong character relationships and stories that are driven by their wants and desires, however right or wrong they may be, are a favorite of mine. The science fiction aspect comes with my love for technology, mainly in music and film and I find many parallels between those arts and writing books. 

Ever since childhood, I have been enthralled by dragons. The stories of these mythical creatures can be told in so many ways, from dragons as pets to bonding with them or even shapeshifting into them. I chose these books because they are memorable, they have stuck with me, and they have fascinated and inspired me for years. All of these writers have influenced my own work, and they are sure to resonate with you, too.

When I was six, my father, a tall, bearded naval officer, read me Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I thought it might be autobiography. Ever since, I've been fascinated by stories where fantasy and reality meet and blend. I studied English literature, taught Dead English Poets to undergraduates, became an editor/writer for hire. Along the way, I canoed, hiked the Rockies, and learned to sail a traditional Nova Scotian schooner. I have two sons, to whom I read stories night after night when they were much younger than they are now. Since retiring, I write fantasy adventure novels set aboard real sailing ships and stories about dragons who talk to exceptional people.