Here are 80 books that In the Vanishers' Palace fans have personally recommended if you like
In the Vanishers' Palace.
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I’m a big-time fantasy reader, and I’ve always loved non-human characters in fiction, whether it was The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. It never sat right with me that the Beast becomes human when I got to understand his vulnerability in monster form; I hated that Ariel wanted boring human legs. I was a romance novel hater for a long time, too, because I thought they were repetitive (and mostly straight). Finding queer indie romance that embraced these monsters and explored what makes them monstrous caused a huge shift in the way I interpret all relationships in literature, and it definitely influenced my choice to write monster romance.
I absolutely loved this quiet, lyrical novella with a sapphic sea monster romance and an underlying paranormal mystery that needs to be solved. The characters were flawed and real to me, and, like the rest of this novella, they were fully fleshed out despite the relatively few pages they have together.
The language is stunning, the pacing is perfect, and the sea monster lady is scaly and incredibly cool. I will be thinking about the impact this book left on me—and the way it proved to me that indie books can be very high quality—for years.
Del needs all the cash she can get, so when someone who claims to be from someplace called The Uncanny Society hires her to look into local disappearances, she takes the job. It brings her to On the Water, a club by the river, where she notices a beautiful woman trying too hard to be overlooked, and who goes out of her way to keep Del from the riverbank.
Saira entered the human world to retrieve the missing Guard of the Northern Gate at the behest of her Eminence, and return to her underwater home as quickly as possible. But…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m a big-time fantasy reader, and I’ve always loved non-human characters in fiction, whether it was The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. It never sat right with me that the Beast becomes human when I got to understand his vulnerability in monster form; I hated that Ariel wanted boring human legs. I was a romance novel hater for a long time, too, because I thought they were repetitive (and mostly straight). Finding queer indie romance that embraced these monsters and explored what makes them monstrous caused a huge shift in the way I interpret all relationships in literature, and it definitely influenced my choice to write monster romance.
This book is just pure, sexy, chaotic fun (with sapphic monster ladies, of course). I’m an absolute sucker for a good genre-bender, and this one is not only chock-full of a variety of monsters, but it’s also a mystery, a comedy, an erotica, and a kind of Bildungsroman all rolled into one.
I laughed out loud more than once when reading this, and certain twists were executed so well that they had me flipping back to the beginning to find the clever foreshadowing. Also, the monsters are plentiful and their interactions are an absolute blast.
This was the book that made Jemma Topaz an insta-buy author for me.
Rosemary Dulahan, answering a strange job posting, arrives in Monstertown – a place inhabited by magical beings from another world.
Navigating the politics of sphinxes, lamias, and secrets, she must learn how to get along with her non-human coworkers and maybe romance a few monster girls along the way.
There's nothing she wants less than getting caught up in a murder mystery troubling all of Monstertown... but the mystery doesn't care what she wants, and she's about to discover the darker side of her new world.
I’m a big-time fantasy reader, and I’ve always loved non-human characters in fiction, whether it was The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. It never sat right with me that the Beast becomes human when I got to understand his vulnerability in monster form; I hated that Ariel wanted boring human legs. I was a romance novel hater for a long time, too, because I thought they were repetitive (and mostly straight). Finding queer indie romance that embraced these monsters and explored what makes them monstrous caused a huge shift in the way I interpret all relationships in literature, and it definitely influenced my choice to write monster romance.
I love, love, love fairy lore, but a lot of books with fairies cut out some of the darker aspects—and this one decidedly leans right into the morbid, deceitful side of fairies.
I adored the setting of the fairy court, and while I don’t always consider fairies to be monstrous, the Fae Queen has unique, see-through, glass anatomy and a decidedly inhuman demeanor that made it all the more satisfying when she started to fall for the human main character. I found the thrill-seeking personality of the main character to be refreshing, and her encounters with the icy queen had strong chemistry (in addition to being super steamy).
Save some of your screams for the queen, there's a good girl...
Janneth Carter has given up on magic these days. She's done being curious, insatiable, dreamy; she just wants to finish her graduate degree and spend the rest of her life as a sensible archeologist. So the last thing she expects when she goes to her dig site on Halloween night is three mysterious strangers standing outside an ancient Scottish grave.
Okay, well the actual last thing she expects is for those strangers to kidnap her and drag her into fairyland.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m a big-time fantasy reader, and I’ve always loved non-human characters in fiction, whether it was The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast. It never sat right with me that the Beast becomes human when I got to understand his vulnerability in monster form; I hated that Ariel wanted boring human legs. I was a romance novel hater for a long time, too, because I thought they were repetitive (and mostly straight). Finding queer indie romance that embraced these monsters and explored what makes them monstrous caused a huge shift in the way I interpret all relationships in literature, and it definitely influenced my choice to write monster romance.
Count me in any time a book addresses the theme of “What makes a monster a monster?” One of the protagonists is Lord Wraith, a fun concept in itself as she’s an assassin cursed to take a wraith’s form once a month—but it’s really the other, manipulative human character who has a “monstrous” personality.
I already love that dynamic and the questions it poses, and throwing in an enemies-to-lovers angle and an unreliable narrator-induced plot twist over it really seals the deal on my love for this book.
I’ve read this one more than once, and I definitely plan to read it again.
Princess Annara has been plotting revenge on her father for eight years, ever since he exiled her from the Royal Palace of Archon. Now, conveniently, he wants her back in the palace. He hasn’t had a change of heart; instead, he promised her to a powerful foreign assassin in order to pay his debts. To anyone else, the situation might look bleak. To Annara, it’s an opportunity.
If she gets close to Senne, Annara will learn the secrets of the world’s most powerful assassin. But as she gets to know Senne better, her own…
Diane C. McPhail is the award-winning author of The Abolitionist’s Daughter, her debut novel based on family history and little-known impediments to Southern Abolitionism and anti-slavery. Her yet-to-be-titled second novel, a historical 1900 Chicago & New Orleans psychological mystery, is due for release in the spring of 2022. As an experienced therapist, Diane has a passionate interest in the complex, sometimes conflicting, qualities of character and culture, and how those intricacies complicate the plot. Diane holds an M.F.A., M.A., and Doctor of Ministry.
In this bestseller, Grissom offers an intricate view of little-known history. I am intrigued by stories that open a window onto aspects of life in history that, for one reason or another, are unfamiliar. Grissom’s story of an Irish indentured servant struggling to bridge the gap between race and class is just such a revelation. These issues remain timeless and powerful.
Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of the highly anticipated Glory Over Everything, established herself as a remarkable new talent with The Kitchen House, now a contemporary classic. In this gripping novel, a dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst in everyone tied to the estate at a thriving plantation in Virginia in the decades before the Civil War.
Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. Lavinia learns to cook,…
Raised in a Mexican-Italian family, I grew up traveling across the Arizona-Sonora borderlands to visit my extended family. As a kid, I took for granted movement across boundaries and cultural and racial mixture, but eventually, I came to see it framed my experience and outlook. In researching the Chinese in northern Mexico, I learned that Mexican women and Chinese-Mexican children followed their expelled men, whether by force or choice, and I became enthralled. I had to find out how these families fared after crossing not just borders but oceans. My passion for reading about how the long presence of Asians in the Americas complicates our understanding of history has only deepened.
Drawing on vivid “coolie” testimonies and slave narratives, this book shows how Chinese contract laborers worked alongside African slaves in the final decades of slavery in the nineteenth century, forming cross-cultural ties and engaging in bitter rivalries as well as other experiences in between. The book features the voices of both sets of groups, including complicated commentary by slaves on the lot of so-called coolies. A powerful read, it brings to life the personal experiences of members of these groups of people during a brutal era of history.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Hi, I’m E.C. Glynn. I love writing stories that tackle the messiness of religious societies and belief systems through a fantasy lens. What qualifies me for such an endeavour? Well, with a Master's in International Relations, a decade as a Recovering Catholic, a career as an Officer in the Army, and an unhealthy fascination with cults, I think that’s not a bad place to start for developing a nuanced and interesting perspective on the topic. I am a very picky reader and need to read books that have beautiful prose, interesting worlds, complex and convoluted concepts, and believable dialogue to enjoy my reading experience.
I read this book over a decade ago, and it still has its claws in me.
The writing prose is lyrical and gorgeous. The world-building, centered around a blend of Christianity and Jewish cultures and religions, is beautiful and spellbinding. The characters are each so creatively written, and the sex – oh my god – is just both tastefully and devastatingly written.
This book is a cult classic. I have recommended it to others so many times over the years.
The lush epic fantasy that inspired a generation with a single precept: Love As Thou Wilt
The first book in the Kushiel's Legacy series is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. A world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, deposed rulers and a besieged Queen, a warrior-priest, the Prince of Travelers, barbarian warlords, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess...all seen through the unflinching eyes of an unforgettable heroine.
A nation born of angels, vast and intricate and surrounded by danger... a woman born to servitude, unknowingly given access to the secrets of the realm...
Raised in a Mexican-Italian family, I grew up traveling across the Arizona-Sonora borderlands to visit my extended family. As a kid, I took for granted movement across boundaries and cultural and racial mixture, but eventually, I came to see it framed my experience and outlook. In researching the Chinese in northern Mexico, I learned that Mexican women and Chinese-Mexican children followed their expelled men, whether by force or choice, and I became enthralled. I had to find out how these families fared after crossing not just borders but oceans. My passion for reading about how the long presence of Asians in the Americas complicates our understanding of history has only deepened.
This book unfolds in a compelling, nonlinear manner, and crosses genres. A combination of biography and family memoir and journalistic and scholarly research, it traces overlapping stories as the author sets out to discover why her great-grandmother traveled from India to America as a “coolie” at the start of the twentieth century and how this migration shaped future generations. Beautifully written, the book raises thorny issues around gender, race, and nationality, offering insight into the wider journeys of Indian contract laborers to the Caribbean and beyond.
In 1903 a Brahmin woman sailed from India to Guyana as a 'coolie', the name the British gave to the million indentured labourers they recruited for sugar plantations worldwide after slavery ended. The woman, who claimed no husband, was pregnant and travelling alone. A century later, her great-granddaughter embarks on a journey into the past, hoping to solve a mystery: what made her leave her country? And had she also left behind a man? Gaiutra Bahadur, an American journalist, pursues traces of her great-grandmother over three continents. She also excavates the repressed history of some quarter of a million female…
Kim Brown Seely was born and raised in Southern California and graduated from Stanford University. A Lowell Thomas Journalist of the Year, she has worked in publishing on both coasts, including as senior editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure, and travel editor at Microsoft and Amazon. Her memoir Uncharted: A Couple’s Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another was named one of the best books about retirement by the Wall Street Journal and is also a Nautilus Award Winner. She has traveled to more than thirty countries for Virtuoso magazine, where she's a contributing writer and has won more than a dozen writing awards for her work.
An exquisite novel, Doig’s The Sea Runners combines the suspense and drama of a great escape with lovely, spare descriptions of the Northwest Coast’s sea, wind, and space.
Based on an account of three men who survived a coastal canoe voyage from indentureship in Russian Alaska during the winter of 1852, it is a remarkable story of the human spirit versus inhuman elements.
Based on an actual incident in 1853, award-winning author Ivan Doig's The Sea Runners is a spare and awe-inspiring tale of the human quest for freedom.
"Goes beyond being 'about' survival and becomes, mile by terrible mile, the experience itself."—New York Times Book Review
In this timeless survival story, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenting high seas and fierce weather from New Archangel, Alaska, to Astoria, Oregon, the men struggle to avoid hostile Tlingit Indians, to fend off starvation and…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a kid, I loved books of all shapes and sizes, especially those written by Irish authors. They made me feel like there was a chance of my own dream coming true – that I would walk into my local bookshop and see a book with my name on the cover. In the last twenty years, we've seen an explosion of new Irish authors making their mark on the world of children’s literature. Don’t get me wrong, I adore leprechauns, and many of the classic Irish books that have been loved by previous generations. But there’s a crop of brand new Irish authors making some incredible work, and it’s time to give them some love!
Simply put: this book is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.
PJ is a world-renowned artist who turned his hand to writing with this period piece, set aboard the famous ship bound for the new world. I had the enormous privilege of visiting PJ’s studio in Dublin several years ago and fell in love with his artwork on the spot.
In a world of flashy, computer-rendered illustrations, PJ’s style is timelessly beautiful.
The simplicity of the story, paired with the epic scope of his artwork makes this book a constant pleasure to revisit over and over again.
“This feast of a book . . . will captivate readers from its opening double-page spread. . . . Sweeping and grand, this personal take on a familiar story is an engaging success.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Leaving the docks of London on the Mayflower as an indentured servant to Pilgrim John Carver, John Howland little knew that he was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. By his great good fortune, John survived falling overboard on the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, and he earned his keep ashore by helping to scout a safe harbor and landing site…