Here are 100 books that Faerie Tale fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have loved gothic and ghostly tales ever since my grandmother showed me a haunted house and told me stories about fairies and changelings. You can often find me browsing in vintage markets and bookshops searching for the perfect find. I have published two gothic middle-grade novels. Welcome To Dead Town is about 12-year-old Raven McKay, who is put into foster care in the town of Grave’s Pass when her parents disappear. But Grave’s Pass isn’t an ordinary town. It’s a town where the living and the dead live side by side. Read below to find out about the next book in the series.
I love the unsettling feeling of fear and menace from the opening page. I was immediately drawn into the world of Will Stanton on Midwinter’s Eve. Even neighbors and rooks are behaving strangely.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt something out of this world would happen. Nothing could have prepared me for the magic of the Old Ones and the evil forces of the Dark. I loved the snow, the family dynamics, the folklore, and Susan Cooper’s enthralling prose.
On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift-- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.
Are you free to walk your own path, or are your choices nothing more than a clever illusion?
Three strangers—Flynn, Vurax, and Ellianna—embark on separate journeys of self-discovery as they search for answers to that very question through their unique experiences. When they uncover a shocking secret that shatters not…
While the pacing, suspense, and twists of a well-crafted modern-day thriller can bring their own rewards, I find that when the thriller is enriched by the cultures of the past, the story can become one of powerful depth. Exploring modern-day morals, laws, or customs can be the start of a canvas painted with far more vivid contrasts. Reading some of these mixed-genre marvels inspired me to write The Book of Judges.
This story is cleverly constructed around a mythical chess set once owned by Charlemagne that is capable, upon complete assembly, of providing its owner with untold power.
Its parallel timelines start in the French Revolution, where an order of nuns is charged with dispersing the pieces to keep them from the wrong hands. In the modern-day story, Catherine Vellis, a computer expert sent to Algeria on an assignment, gets caught up in a chase to reunite them.
The prose is as magical as the story, particularly in its richly detailed look at revolutionary France.
A fantasy novel from the author of A CALCULATED RISK. The secret of the Eight is a puzzle whose solution has challenged the most brilliant minds known to humanity. Catherine Velis is manipulated into using her unrivalled problem-solving skills to find and reassemble to legendary chess set.
As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true?
Anne Bishop weaves European myth and historical witch-hunting into a fantastical tale of Fae, Witches, and those without magic. All three books in this series are unputdownable. So real is the imagery and the variety of characters, each with their own blend of magic and relationship to the natural world, that no matter how dark the tale gets, I can’t stop reading.
Tir Alainn blends the natural, spiritual and physical world of myth into a grassroots world with characters that live and die for what they believe. With a strong moral core to the story, the richness of myth brings the inhabitants of Tir Alainn to life. An enchanting dark fantasy trilogy that is a must-read.
The first novel in New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop's Tir Alainn Trilogy.
The youngest in a long line of witches, Ari senses that things are changing—changing for the worse. For generations, her kin have tended the Old Places, keeping the land safe and fertile. But with the Summer Moon, the mood of her neighbors has soured. And Ari is no longer safe.
The Fae have long ignored what occurs in the mortal world, passing through on their shadowy roads only long enough to amuse themselves. But the roads are slowly disappearing, leaving the Fae Clans isolated and…
The Shadow of the Eagle is a fresh take on epic fantasy that has all the trademarks of a Paula Weston novel: fast-paced action, immersive world-building, nuanced characters, and a slow-burn romance. It’s about the nature of loyalty, love, faith, and friendship.
As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true?
The first book in the trilogy, Key of Light, hooked me from the opening page and the rather sassy Malory Price who is driving in a storm to an intriguing dinner invitation and worrying about the bad day she’s just had. A thoroughly delightful woman, a born organizer, with a warrior streak a mile wide who sets off on a quest with her newfound friends to hunt for a mystical key with the power to lift the enchantment cast on three sleeping Celtic demi-goddesses.
I always love seeing how Nora Roberts crafts a boy meets girl story with a touch of Celtic fantasy. A fun read. A blend of myth, magic, and romance amid the backdrop of a hunt for a mystical key. Who could ask for more?
The pleasure of your company is desired for cocktails and conversation. 8pm, 4th September. Warrior's Peak. You are the Key. The lock awaits.
When Malory Price is issued with the above invitation she is naturally suspicious, especially as Warrior's Peak is a local mansion house straight out of a Hollywood horror movie. But with her overdraft at crisis limit and on the verge of losing her job at a local art gallery, she has little to lose by attending the event.
But Malory is about to get more than she bargained for. At Warrior's Peak she finds that she and…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This is one of those books that came along just when I needed it most.
Author Juliet Marillier viscerally shows the heartbreaking consequences for trauma survivors who are silenced and must keep a terrible secret. I loved the detailed medieval Irish setting, but I was especially drawn to this book because it’s a retelling of “The Wild Swans” (and I love this type of tale with a sister having to break her brothers’ curse in total silence). But what really sucked me in was the narrator’s plight and her quiet determination to persevere to save her loved ones at any cost to herself.
Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum, faces the difficult task of having to save her family from its enemies, who have bewitched her father and six older brothers while forcing her to choose between the life she has always known and a special love.
Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.
In The Girl of Dorcha Wood Ward leads her readers on an emotional journey of love and loss that is filled with innocence, betrayal, love, pain, bitterness, and revenge. Her characters are incredibly realistic. She has a way of making you feel like you’ve known them all your life. The setting is well-written and almost feels like home.
Treacherous. Evil. Dark. Dorcha Wood is all of these.
And none of them.
The people of Felmore talk of Dorcha Wood in whispers, if they speak of it at all. There is danger in the dark forest. Monstrous things, remnants of the Aos Sí, lurk in the shadows, hunting the unwary should one be careless enough to cross those borders.
But to seventeen-year-old Fiadh, Dorcha Wood is home. A haven. It speaks to her in the rustle of the wind through the leaves, in the wild things that come to her hand. It is a forest whose secrets become known…
"Is this supposed to help? Christ, you've heard it a hundred times. You know the story as well as I do, and it's my story!" "Yeah, but right now it only has a middle. You can't remember how it begins, and no-one knows how it ends."
Who doesn’t love fairies and their tales? As a kid, I devoured every collection I could find in the library. It was only when I learned Irish at university, though, that I stumbled into the síd–the ancient Irish Otherworld of medieval literature—and discovered the race of ever-living, perfectly beautiful creatures who dwell there. These Irish stories inspired some of the earliest fairy romances of France and England, but they are sexier, funnier, and bloodier than better-known tales. Never mind the winged warriors of YA fiction or the twee Tinkerbells of Fairy Core—these five books led me into the hollow hills of the original fairies.
This tale of tales is like a 12th-century Irish Arabian Nights. It brings Saint Patrick, a 5th-century missionary, and his priests together with magically long-lived warriors from the fían bands of the giant hero Finn Mac Cumhaill (McCool). Finn’s beloved companions, Cailte and Oisín, recount their many adventures in times gone by with the Otherworldly Túatha Dé (Tribes of the Goddess). Patrick, fearing that their history will be lost when the men finally die, orders his monks to put their tales in writing.
Patrick must have adored stories of battling kings and alluring princesses, treasure hidden under uncanny mounds, shapeshifters, murderous ravens, and lovers who cross worlds to be together, all presented as an interview between Patrick and pagan elders. One question runs through tales: Is the sí and the ancient indigenous past of Ireland compatible with the orderly future of psalm-singing Christians? So long as the Church is in…
"'Dear holy cleric,' they said, 'these old warriors tell you no more than a third of their stories, because their memories are faulty. Have these stories written down on poets' tablets in refined language, so that the hearing of them will provide entertainment for the lords and commons of later times.' The angels then left them."
Tales of the Elders of Ireland is the first complete translation of the late Middle Irish Acallam na Senorach, the largest literary text surviving from twelfth-century Ireland. It contains the earliest and most comprehensive collection of Fenian stories and poetry, intermingling the contemporary Christian…
I have been fascinated by ancient sacred sites since I first visited the ancient Rollright Stones on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border decades ago. I am interested in how the study of folklore and local traditions can be used in conjunction with archaeology to trace the origins and purposes of ancient monuments. I am an author and researcher who has had seven books published on the subjects of ancient civilizations, prehistoric monuments, and supernatural folklore. Born in Birmingham, England, I am a qualified archaeologist with a BA in European Archaeology from the University of Nottingham, and an MPhil in Greek Archaeology from Birmingham University.
I was attracted to this book as it uses the most up-to-date archaeological evidence together with new work on DNA and other scientific techniques to tell the story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples, from around 10,000BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest. Whilst there are new archaeological discoveries made every week, one or two of which could potentially challenge some of the ideas in this work, at the moment it is the most up-to-date book on the subject which we have, and as such should be treasured.
The last Ice Age, which came to an end about 12,000 years ago, swept the bands of hunter gatherers from the face of the land that was to become Britain and Ireland, but as the ice sheets retreated and the climate improved so human groups spread slowly northwards, re-colonizing the land that had been laid waste. From that time onwards Britain and Ireland have been continuously inhabited and the resident population has increased from a few hundreds to more than 60 million.
Britain Begins is nothing less than the story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples,…
Humor is based on surprise and the ‘foreign’ is often surprising. As I traveled all over the world for work, I searched out local authors and found myself laughing. It started with At Swim Two Birds and has never stopped.
In the summer of 1968, I was 20 and spent the summer pretty much banally in Israel and Europe. Around me, the world was on fire, but I was inside my own head.
Eventually, I washed up in Dublin, where I walked in a cold rain to Dorset Street, there to recreate Leopold Bloom’s pork kidney purchase from Dlugacz, the butcher. There was no Dlugacz on Dorset, but there was another butcher who stuffed into stiff pink butcher paper something that glistened and oozed. My plan was to fry it up, as Leopold had, on the hotplate in my rented room. It did not go well. I was felled intestinally in dramatic fashion; pity there was no one to observe.
Somehow, in my travels, I had obtained a copy of At Swim Two-Birds, and now, my insides recreating The Troubles, I wanly reached for it and read the first paragraph:…
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing. Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds…
I have been a student of Druidry since the mid-1990s and I have also had a passion for history and mythology since I received a children’s version of “The Twelve Labours of Hercules” when I was around 7 years old. I’ve read pretty much all the major stories and texts in relation to Celtic myth and Druid lore (particularly from Ireland), sometimes in multiple versions, so I think I have a fair idea of what is useful or worth reading.
This book is over 100 years old but it is still one of the best compilations of mythology about Ireland and Wales.
It gives potted versions of the stories, an excellent summary of what the myths are about, covering a vast number of them. It also has some lovely black and white illustrations.
This splendidly illustrated study by the distinguished Celticist T. W. Rolleston masterfully retells the great Celtic myths and illuminates the world that spawned them. Focusing principally on Irish myths, the book first takes up the history and religion of the Celts, the myths of the Irish invasion and the early Milesian kings. What follows is pure enchantment as you enter the timeless world of heroic tales centered around the Ulster king Conor mac Nessa and the Red Branch Order of chivalry (Ultonian cycle). These are followed by the tales of the Ossianic cycle, which center on the figure of Finn…
