Here are 86 books that Imager fans have personally recommended if you like
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At heart, I believe every one of us is creative. It doesn’t matter if you express your creativity through words, notes, metal, wood, food, fabric, or paint. Personally, I love to sketch, paint, write, and sculpt. There is something magical about bringing your imagination to life and sharing it with the world! Our art allows us to share our emotions, dreams, memories, and culture with the world. As a fantasy author, I wanted to create a place where art can transform the physical world too.
If you haven’t read anything by Brian Sanderson, this novella is a great place to start.
It is a fast read with a hopeful tone and satisfying ending. In this story, Shai is caught forging a priceless artifact. As punishment, she must forge a soul for the emperor who is in a coma. If her forgery doesn’t work, the empire will fall into chaos.
The magic of Shai’s forging is very cool; she creates stamps that can rewrite the nature of an object’s existence. The Emperor’s Soul spoke to me on a personal level. My stepmother is a Japanese artist, and I grew up watching her carefully seal her pieces with her custom, red stamp.
Highly recommended to anyone looking for that quick, feel-good punch that great fantasy can provide!
From the bestselling author of the Mistborn Trilogy and co-author of the final three books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series comes the tale of a heretic thief who may be an Empire's only hope for survival.
Shai is a Forger: a foreigner who can flawlessly re-create any item by rewriting its history using skillful magic . . . although she's currently condemned to death after trying to steal the emperor's sceptre, she has one last opportunity to save herself. The emperor has barely survived an assassination attempt, he needs a new soul and, despite viewing her skill as…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
At heart, I believe every one of us is creative. It doesn’t matter if you express your creativity through words, notes, metal, wood, food, fabric, or paint. Personally, I love to sketch, paint, write, and sculpt. There is something magical about bringing your imagination to life and sharing it with the world! Our art allows us to share our emotions, dreams, memories, and culture with the world. As a fantasy author, I wanted to create a place where art can transform the physical world too.
Like many fantasy novels, The Paper Magician revolves around a character who feels small, lost, and powerless.
Although Ceony Twill desperately wants metal magic, she gets assigned to paper and decides to make the most of it. Since I’m half-Japanese, I immediately thought “origami!” when I read about the folding magic. It is the first book in a trilogy and I found the story to be a light, fast read.
Holmberg’s Victorian, gas-lamp world feels familiar, and though I found the characters a little thin (paper joke intended!), I enjoyed Ceony’s adventure. My favorite characters were two of the paper creatures, Fennel and Jonto, and I dare you not to adore them too!
"Charlie is a vibrant writer with an excellent voice and great world building. I thoroughly enjoyed the Paper Magician." -Brandon Sanderson, author of Mistborn and The Way of Kings
Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she's bonded to paper, that will be her only magic...forever.
Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to…
At heart, I believe every one of us is creative. It doesn’t matter if you express your creativity through words, notes, metal, wood, food, fabric, or paint. Personally, I love to sketch, paint, write, and sculpt. There is something magical about bringing your imagination to life and sharing it with the world! Our art allows us to share our emotions, dreams, memories, and culture with the world. As a fantasy author, I wanted to create a place where art can transform the physical world too.
If you haven’t read any of Charles de Lint’s stories, you’re in for a treat!
Each of his stories feels so fresh and original. His characters jump off the page… but will also break your heart. This novel is about a young artist named Isabelle Copley (Izzy) whose whimsical paintings seem so real they could come to life. But is her art just… art? The writing is beautiful and lyrical, but also dark and scary.
Memory and Dream is also a great entry into de Lint’s story world of “Newford”.
From her mentor, Rushkin, Isabell Copley had learned to paint creatures that come to life--literally--and years after these creatures have ruined her life, Isabelle returns to painting, haunted by memories, dreams, and the threat of her mentor's return.
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
At heart, I believe every one of us is creative. It doesn’t matter if you express your creativity through words, notes, metal, wood, food, fabric, or paint. Personally, I love to sketch, paint, write, and sculpt. There is something magical about bringing your imagination to life and sharing it with the world! Our art allows us to share our emotions, dreams, memories, and culture with the world. As a fantasy author, I wanted to create a place where art can transform the physical world too.
It’s the first book I’ve read with three authors, but I thought they did a great job at crafting the story of Tira Virte, where art is created to record history, marriages, and treaties. But how safe is a society where only men from a specific family can create the art?
Each author wrote one section of the book, and I definitely noticed each change in author voice, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story. The vibe is creepy and lush, like the old gothic horror novels. The art-based magic introduced in this novel is interesting (and icky!).
It won a ton of awards, and though it’s not an easy read, it shouldn’t be missed!
Now in trade paperback, this World Fantasy Award-nominated novel by three powerhouse women fantasy writers introduces a world where art is prized above all.
In the duchy of Tira Virte, fine art is prized above all things, both for its beauty and as a binding legal record of everything from marriage and births to treaties and inheritances. And although the Grand Duke is aware that there is more to the paintings of certain limners than meets the eye, not even he knows just how extraordinary the art of the Grijalva family truly is.
I’ve always firmly believed that, being an all-encompassing genre, speculative fiction represents nearly everything I love about writing and storytelling. I’m therefore very proud to have established myself in that world over the past several years and hope to positively impact others in the way I’ve been positively impacted by the sorts of works I’ve mentioned here.
My second true love where speculative fiction universes are concerned is undoubtedly the Apprentice Adept series. The way it so deftly blends fantasy and science fiction, the iconic, unforgettable characters and concepts, and the, frankly, epic way the story evolves and eventually resolves absolutely blew my mind as a kid, and I’ve found revisiting it as an adult just as satisfying and enjoyable.
On the technological, decadent world of Proton, someone was trying to destroy Stile, serf and master Gamesman. His only escape lay through a mysterious “curtain” revealed by a loving robot.
Beyond the curtain lay Phaze—a world totally ruled by magic. There, his first encounter was with an amulet that turned into a demon determined to choke him to death. And there, he soon learned, his alternate self had already been murdered by sorcery, and he was due to be the next victim.
“Know thyself!” the infallible Oracle told him. But first he must save himself as he shuttled between worlds.
I’ve loved portal fantasies since childhood—after all, who has never imagined being swept away to another world, particularly one in which magic is more than mere illusion? (The trick, of course, is then finding your way back…) Since the wardrobes in my life have thus far refused to open onto snowy forests, however, I write my own stories these days.
Clever, with rich worldbuilding and a cast of flawed, fleshed-out characters, this book is a definite page-turner. Nora Fisher’s life is in a slump: her dissertation is stalled, and her love life is in tatters. While attending a friend’s wedding, she slips off for a hike and accidentally winds up in another world, one far more beautiful than her own but where nothing is as it seems. Escaping her gilded prison is one matter, but to find her way home again, Nora will need to discover her talent for magic. I thoroughly enjoyed both this book and its recent sequel, How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic.
"If Hermione Granger had been an American who never received an invitation to Hogwarts, this might have been her story." -People
Earning comparisons to wildly popular fantasy novels by Deborah Harkness and Lev Grossman, Emily Croy Barker's enchanting debut offers an intelligent escape into a richly imagined world. And with an appealing female protagonist, cinematic storytelling, wry humor, and wonderfully clever literary references, The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic is sure to capture the imaginations of readers everywhere.
During a miserable weekend at a friend's wedding, eager to forget about her disastrous breakup and stalled dissertation, Nora Fischer wanders…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
I have loved fantasy and history since I was a child, and a blend of the two creates a new sort of magic! In addition to reading historical fantasy, I’ve been passionate about writing in the genre and bringing new “what if?” questions to life with historical settings and mysticism and magic in my writing, some of which are inspired by ancient traditions around the world. Fantasy can be more than imaginative creation, but a delve into the mysterious side of history as well, and I find that books that delve into this aspect of fantasy really capture my interest when they’re done well.
At 782 pages, including numerous footnotes, it might seem a daunting task for a reader, but I would have easily enjoyed a novel twice its length. The style of writing is beautifully detailed and has a wry British humour that is a pleasure to read.
The magic is seamlessly woven into the land and culture of England. We learn about the history of the Napoleonic Wars with a bit of a fantastical spin, showing how magic was used in the war and the consequences of its presence in history.
An alternative history that truly captures one’s imagination and sense of “what if?” Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one that I’ll definitely read again and again.
Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of…
I vividly remember the first time a book transported me—it was in Mrs. Paul’s second-grade math class, and I was reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader under the desk. It carried me away to a different world. I’ve been looking for that same magic in every book since, hoping to fall into a picture or open a wardrobe door to another place and time. This list contains a few of my favorites, the stories that have earned permanent spots on my shelves, the ones that get pulled down when I need some enchantment in my life. (And don’t we all need a little magic these days?)
Its allegiance shifts and changes over time. To hold it, Houses of Magic put on an epic tournament at every Turning, where their best and brightest act as champions in battle. But what the champions don’t know, because their elders have never taught them, is that the magic itself draws from a dark source, and that source is crumbling.
Powerful magician Sydney has emerged from The House of Shadows to fight for a sponsor who wishes to establish his own house. But Sydney has first-hand experience with the darkness.
And she doesn’t want to help restore the establishment. She wants to burn it to the ground.
"A remarkable writer." -Neil Gaiman, bestselling author of American Gods
An Alex Award Winner
There is a dark secret that is hiding at the heart of New York City and diminishing the city's magicians' power in this fantasy thriller by acclaimed author Kat Howard.
In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney-a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic.…
I have always adored fairy tales, most particularly rewritings of fairy tales where the heroines seize a destiny all their own. But beyond feminine agency, I want a story that sweeps me away in every respect: lose me in a forest, turn my head with magic, let me stand and face my inner darkness, and, perhaps most importantly, entrance me with gorgeous language—it has to feel like a fairy tale. As fate would have it, these particular proclivities led me to write fantasy novels in my own right! You won’t find princesses, but you will find magic libraries and stories that dwell on the power of stories themselves!
Back in ancient Rome, an artist wouldn’t be described as being a genius but rather as having a genius—a helpful spirit that would join alongside them and aid them in the creative process.
C.L. Polk’s The Midnight Bargain takes this tradition in stride with a feminist tale of a fantasy court where magic comes in the form of spirit possession. In order to marry (and, of course, produce heirs *eyeroll*) marriage traditions demand that women must be protected from these possessive spirits lest the spirits possess their unborn children.
Our lovely heroine wants no part of this and, unlikely band of friends plus a crush in tow, sets out to forge her own path. The level of detail in the different cultures Polk depicts is uniquely gorgeous.
2021 World Fantasy Award Finalist for Best Novel | 2021 Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel | 2021 FIYAHCON Ignyte Award Finalist for Best Novel | 2021 Canada Reads Finalist | NPR Best Books of 2020 | November 2020 Indie Next Pick | Apple Books: Best Books of October
"A sleek, beautiful book with a quietly serious heart." -The New York Times
From the bestselling, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Witchmark comes a sweeping, romantic new fantasy set in a world reminiscent of Regency England, where women's magic is taken from them when they marry. A sorceress must balance her…
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
I’m an autistic unapologetic writing nerd who has spent most of their life using fiction and pop culture to connect better with the world. It has always been the tool, escape, and comfort for me when I feel overwhelmed. As I bite my tongue to keep from monologuing, I always strive to share, introduce, or connect with my passions. Now I use that and my degree in psychology to try to craft worlds that people can feel emotional about in my writing and poetry.
Libriomancer is a very meta urban fantasy where the power of fiction is real and accessible. It delves deeply into the powers of other fictional worlds within the framework of the one created for this story. With more than a little humor and a lot of fun, the literary fantasy and science fiction pop culture becomes active tools rather than cute easter eggs. I felt heart-warmed by the inventive and interesting use of combining old books I love to help form a new book I love.
Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of a secret society founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg. As such, he is gifted with the magical ability to reach into books and draw forth objects.
But when Gutenberg vanishes without a trace, Isaac finds himself pitted against everything from vampires to a sinister, nameless foe who is bent on revealing magic to the world at large... and at any cost.
