65 Books Like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

When I first read Interview with the Vampire (I was 12), I was struck by how Anne Rice made darkness beautiful. The mood, the grief, the sensuality—it all felt so rich and strange and alive.

I didn’t just want to read about Louis and Lestat; I wanted to live inside that shadowed world, however painful. The power of her vampires was alluring, even as their sadness confused me. How could being immortal be such a torment?

This book taught me that supernatural fiction could be poetic, philosophical, even transcendent. There’s a reason this novel endures.

It made me want to write stories where beauty and horror dance together in candlelight.

As someone who’s moved around a LOT and lived far from family most of my life, I’m a sucker for found family of any kind.

This story is one of the best. I loved reading about all these demi-god children working together and finding their connection through loyalty and depth of friendship.

As someone very familiar with Greek mythology, I really enjoyed the fresh and enjoyably new story with familiar players. 

I had to include this first Harry Potter book because Harry is the epitome of a gifted child and I loved these books from the first.

When my own book, The Meme Machine, came out in 1999, someone rang me excitedly to tell me that my book was number 5 on Amazon!!! (There were not so many books listed on Amazon in those days!!).

I was so thrilled that, of course, I had to find out what the top four were. And guess what – they were the hardback and paperback versions of the first two Harry Potter books, which I’d never even heard of. I bought them immediately and never looked back, receiving each one in the post on its publication day.

What terrific books they were and are.

I love this book because Tolkien took the fantasy genre to a new, unprecedented level, resurrecting ancient legends of old, with countless mythical creatures.

His magnificent characters defined their races, occupations, and even their languages, later inspiring the game, Dungeons and Dragons, of which I was once a Dungeon Master. Many of The Fellowship serve messianic roles. Gandalf, for example, conquers death following his battle with a demon, and Stryder, an obscure ranger, turns out to be Aragorn, heir of the fallen kingdom.

Tolkien captures keen insight into the human condition regarding the struggle against sin. He also whispers a mystery; while an evil wizard created the One Ring to rule them all, a hidden, even more powerful force is clearly behind the ring’s eventual destruction.

Another wounded hero book, but I’m choosing this one because not only is it one of my favorites from the series, but Lynn Kurland packs so much emotion into every page that I cry and laugh and live the book while I’m reading it and long after.

It’s time travel (but they always seem to bring chocolate with them ☺ ) and the love is so strong. Her stories are like catnip.

While the prose style of Act One is a little fussy, florid, and overly eager to impress, this is still a moving, funny, and emotional biography of a talented, ambitious young man who is determined to make his mark as a Broadway playwright. And, at the end, when he single-handedly turns his out-of-town failure (co-written with George S. Kaufman) into a hit, you want to stand up and cheer.

Woolford describes his book as a prenatal guide for musicals and it is indeed just that. He breaks down the process from idea to opening night for a thorough examination of what goes into each part of writing a musical. From the tickle of inspiration—and everything that went into its construction after that point, including the steps back and sideways, trying to find the right formula for success—there isn’t much left out. Warning: You might be inspired to try your hand at writing once you finish this book! 

I felt as if I’d taken a college-level theatre course at the end of How Musicals Work, with an instructor who revels in the complicated chaos that is musicals! It opens up a whole extra level to watching/experiencing a musical.

Thirteen-year-old Hudson stars on Broadway, but baking is his true passion. He’s ecstatic when he receives an invitation to participate in the Great American Baking competition—until he finds out what his assignment will be. He must make a cupcake with flavors that reflect his family’s ethnic background, and he knows nothing about Indian spices. (Cue the theatrics!)

Hudson’s multi-talented grandmother comes to the rescue, introducing him to the delights of cardamom, saffron, mango, and pistachio extract while his actor friends cheer him on. I love that one of the co-authors of Fearless: In the Mix is a Broadway star herself. (Did someone say Hamilton?) Her experiences certainly lend dramatic flair to this novel, perfect for older middle-grade readers. 

Milo Hastings’s book, The City of Endless Night, written right after the end of WWI, foretells Germany’s eventual rise to power again. The book’s main character Lyman De Forrest takes us through a socially stratified underground Berlin, where 300,000,000 people live. In the lower strata, every aspect of life, including how much a person gets to eat each day (based on their weight), is controlled. Despite being more than 100 years old, this book is surprisingly modern and the food politics are just as relevant.

Everything that can wrong in live theatre happened to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark—and on the biggest scale possible. How Glen Berger, the only non-rich and famous person on the creative team of The Lion King director Julie Taymor and U2 rockers Bono and The Edge, managed to tell all without being sued is a mystery. Maybe it’s because the fights, failures, and firings are all just another day at work on Broadway—as are the accidents. Every outrageous incident Berger relates I have personally experienced in the musicals I’ve written—from on Broadway to Off-Off-Broadway and around the globe. Reading Song of Spider-Man prepared me for the worst, from producers applying Mafia-style pressure to witnessing an actor plummet to the stage like a dead weight.