Here are 68 books that Octavia Bloom and the Missing Key fans have personally recommended if you like
Octavia Bloom and the Missing Key.
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I have always loved literature, especially for its daring use of language. That’s how I became interested in the weird and strange styles of the nineteenth century. For many scholars, the Victorian novel is the most realistic form of writing ever produced and the closest that the novel comes to cinema—so if you notice an author’s style, then something’s gone wrong because it disrupts the illusion of reality. But it doesn’t take much to realise that even the most realistic novels have styles that are highly distinct and that the Victorian period is full of other writers whose styles are bizarre, extreme, or fascinatingly eccentric.
This book has become so familiar to us through cartoons and movies that we often forget how very weird it is as a piece of writing. The book begins when Alice, bored of her sister’s company, notices a white rabbit muttering to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear!”, and starts to become curious—not, mind you, because talking rabbits are impossible, but only because they are so very intriguing.
The rest of the book shares this bemused tone: Alice will be subjected to all sorts of indignities, including a near-beheading, but as a “good” Victorian girl, she will generally accept the bizarre reality that is presented to her. Carroll’s mastery of language is key to this effect. Nearly every character sounds sensible, turning well-formed logical sentences, but they never make much actual sense, and their speeches are riddled with so many puns, double meanings, and other linguistic tricks that one can never…
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel by English author Lewis Carroll (the pseudonym of Charles Dodgson). It tells of a young girl named Alice, who falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children.
One of the best-known and most popular works of English-language fiction, its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have been enormously…
The Real Boys of the Civil War
by
J. Arthur Moore,
The Real Boys of the Civil War is a research about the real boys who served during the war, opening with a historiography research paper about their history along with its 7-page source document. It then evolves into a series of collections of their stories by topic, concluding with a…
An avid reader since the age of 7, I have long loved history and fantasy. As a writer, I have a passion to share those things with young readers. I try to create stories that engage imaginations and share some historical facts along the way. As a member of a book reviewing team for new kids’ publications for an online kid lit blog, I also get to read and enjoy what other authors are putting out there as well.
This is another one I have re-read because I love the fantasy aspect. I didn’t come across C.S. Lewis’ books until I was a young adult, and then it was his adult writings. Now, I’m loving catching up on his Narnia series.
Written in 1950, this classic tale lives on, never becoming out of date, and I love that it is currently a stage production.
As a Christian, I also love a classic tale of good versus evil, with the drama between the white witch and the lion hero, Aslan, who overcomes death to save Narnia from the witch’s evil spell. For me, it’s a truly inspirational allegorical tale that stands the test of time.
Lucy steps into the Professor's wardrobe - but steps out again into a snowy forest. She's stumbled upon the magical world of Narnia, land of unicorns, centaurs, fauns... and the wicked White Witch, who terrorises all. Lucy soon realises that Narnia, and in particular Aslan, the great Lion, needs her help if the country's creatures are ever going to be free again...
I’m a grown-up who struggles to stay in the here and now, vastly preferring to live in the stories in my head or in the book in front of me. I grew up in New England, Spain, and now have settled in Colorado after traveling around most of the lower 48 states. I’ve been a fan of well written fantasy since I learned to read, and at 35 I started writing my own fantasy stories. Now when I need a perfect getaway escape, I read my own books!
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.
The Lightning Thief: the First book in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series.
The first bestselling book in Rick Riordan's phenomenally successful Percy Jackson series.
Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked to be the son of a Greek God. I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, skateboarding. The usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. That's when things started really going wrong. Now I spend my time fighting with swords, battling monsters with my friends, and generally trying to stay alive.
Everyone in Angelina's big family has a story to tell.
The Yesterday Dress is a story for seven to nine-year olds about family connections and how learning about the past gives us a stronger sense of where we come from, who we are and how we fit into our world.…
I have always loved books where the main character travels over into another world for a grand adventure. I found it comforting that they felt at home in a magical place as well. Middle-grade has always been a fun genre for me to read, and one that I started reading to my children once they were old enough as well. Now, as a middle-grade author of a portal fantasy trilogy, I’ve been able to create relationships with other kidlit authors and publishers and have been on many new literary adventures that way as well.
This one has winter Narnia vibes, but with a whole new twist on the story. I was a beta reader for Jennifer and I read the book in one sitting because it was so good. This one is adventure-packed and perfect for those just starting to love reading. It’s book one of a series, and I recommend this one to everyone who loves Narnia or portal-traveling books. Imagine being able to just jump realms.
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fright…”
What if Santa Claus was really a young, mad trickster and you had the one thing he wanted? What if the only person who agrees to protect you has a dark past of letting those he’s meant to protect die? What if one day you’re walking in the city and suddenly you can see another world tucked into the cracks of your own?
Helen Bell has been unwanted her whole life. So, when a young, handsome Winter guardian appears to aid her in a crisis, she’s sure he’s got his…
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.
I firmly believe that everyone, especially teenage girls, should own their right to pick and choose. Life guarantees you’ll run across the opportunity to make “bad” decisions, but these are so much more fun to read about than a path that’s straight and narrow. Cultivating radical empathy for my fellow humans, even those I don’t agree with, is a passion that makes me a kinder person and a more nuanced writer. Plus, I like shouting at books as much as the next reader. It makes my cats come running, which makes them tired, which makes them sit and cuddle. Diabolical, indeed.
This Final Fantasy and DnD-inspired contemporary fantasy has 5 POVs, but we’re really here for prickly leather queen Nausicaä. Nos is a sarcastic ex-Fury with a short temper, a sword, and a serious grudge against the Deities who exiled her to the mortal realm. She’s old, she’s cranky, and she’s totally soft for Arlo, an adorable half-fae girl on a mission to uncover the mystery behind unsolved magic murders in Toronto. I seriously can’t resist a grump and sunshine team-up.
“Beautifully written and deliciously complex…I couldn’t get enough.” —Nicki Pau Preto, author of the Crown of Feathers series
The Cruel Prince meets City of Bones in this thrilling urban fantasy set in the magical underworld of Toronto that follows a queer cast of characters racing to stop a serial killer whose crimes could expose the hidden world of faeries to humans.
Choose your player.
The “ironborn” half-fae outcast of her royal fae family. A tempestuous Fury, exiled to earth from the Immortal Realm and hellbent on revenge. A dutiful fae prince, determined to earn his place on the throne. The…
This is the Inspiring true story of a young girl surviving Mengele’s hell. This is an incisive, harrowing, and touching memoir of Eva Mozes Kor and her twin sister Miriam, who are sent to Auschwitz only to be torn from their parents and given to Josef Mengele, "The Angel of…
Many kids love fairy tales and so did I but I was always puzzled by the lack of fairies in these tales. The idea of a separate world containing these beautiful but flawed creatures enthralled me from an early age. I read everything about them so that I could get my hands on, whether the book was fiction or nonfiction. When doing my Master's in Children’s Literature, I studied fae tales that appear around the world which evoked a thirst in me to write my own…so I did. All the books on this list give a glimpse of the chaotic nature of the fae, of the world that surely exists beyond our comprehension. I hope they are as much a treat for your imagination as they were mine.
Holly Black is a master of the fae tale. Much has been said about this trilogy already but I assure you, the praise is well-deserved. Each book has a tight and dynamic plot, prose that fairly flies off the page, and a conclusion that is very satisfying. The first book was almost deceptive in the way it presented a not-very-strong protagonist until she evolves and becomes so much more than the reader thinks her to be. It’s the best kind of fictional surprise.
Discover Holly Black's epic bestselling The Folk of the Air series in this complete e-book collection which includes: The Cruel Prince, The Lost Sisters, The Wicked King, and The Queen of Nothing.
Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her…
I remember being gifted a copy of a fairy tale book for children by someone my dad worked with as a kid. "Wow, these are really close to the originals," Mom murmured under her breath. "Wait, there are originals?" That set off a chain reaction of a lifelong love of fairy tales, myths, legends, and folk stories. Writing The Tooth Fairy forced me to double-check my lifetime of accumulated knowledge. Plus, being trapped indoors with audiobooks during a global pandemic left me a lot more time to learn! In short: I simply love the old legends.
Have you ever had a book actively try to stop you from reading it? This non-fiction book was guarded like all doorways into Fairie. Every time I sat down to read it the kettle would come to a boil, or the phone would ring! I read it cover to cover though. Even finding it again to tell you about it was a challenge.
Discover where faeries and other mythical creatures are hiding in our modern, urban environment with this beautifully illustrated guide to uncovering magical beings.
From the musty corners of libraries to the darkest depths of urban sewers, faeries, boggarts, redcaps, and other fantastical species can be found all around us-but only if we know where to look. And like every other being in the modern world, these wonderous creatures have been forced to adapt to the climate, industrial, and cultural changes of the modern era. Many formerly common creatures from akeki to cave trolls have been driven out by the urban…
Science fantasy uniquely combines elements of science fiction (advanced technology, futuristic settings) with those of fantasy (magic, mythological creatures, and supernatural elements). This fusion creates rich and versatile storytelling that often comes with a deep sense of mystery beyond what science fiction or fantasy achieves on their own.
This blend also requires greater “buy-in” from the reader to believe in the world we’re being presented. As readers, we often accept dwarves in fantasy with little to no explanation. We do the same with spaceships in science fiction. But dwarves in spaceships require truly creative storytelling to achieve a much higher buy-in threshold. The author who can pull this off has my attention.
The only Young Adult book on this list but firmly deserving of its place, this book is the perfect example of how to successfully blend science fiction and fantasy.
Colfer takes a traditional fantasy fairy society and gives them advanced weaponry, surveillance gadgets, and time-stopping devices. It works incredibly well, and through convincing world-building I was immediately bought into the idea of fantasy creatures with sci-fi technology.
A standout feature of the novel is the characters, whose backstories, motivations, and behaviours all help to build this science fantasy world. We get an elf “LEPRecon” officer with access to bionic wings, a centaur who heads the technology department of the “Lower Elements Police,” and a dwarven thief who sells stolen human property on the black market. They were all enormously fun to read.
Twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has discovered a world below ground of armed and dangerous--and extremely high-tech--fairies. He kidnaps one of them, Holly Short, and holds her for ransom in an effort to restore his family's fortune. But he may have underestimated the fairies' powers. Is he about to trigger a cross-species war?
Disney's “Artemis Fowl” is directed by Kenneth Branagh and stars Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, Tamara Smart, Nonzo Anozie, with Josh Gad, and Judi Dench.
Did you know you can survive being swallowed by a whale? Or that octopus wrestling used to be an actual sport? Or, that once a town in Oregon didn't know what to do with a whale carcass that washed up on their beaches, so they...BLEW IT UP?
Mary Losure is the author of The Fairy Ring, or Elsie and Frances Fool the World. Though she doesn’t happen to believe in fairies herself, when she went to Cottingley, England, and explained that she was writing a children’s book about the girls who took the Cottingley Fairy Photographs, she met a surprisingly large number of people who did. Plus, she’s always been interested in imaginary worlds. Her most recent book, Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d, is the story of a magic-seeking boy who grew up to become the world’s greatest alchemist. Oh, and also discovered the secrets of the universe….
For a serious look at English fairy lore, try The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature by K.M. Briggs. It’s only one of the author’s many books on fairies, so if you’re interested in English fairy lore, the work of Katharine. Briggs is a gold mine.
Fairies fascinate young and old alike. To some they offer tantalizing glimpses of other worlds, to others a subversive counterpoint to human arrogance and weakness. Like no other author, Katharine Briggs throughout her work communicated the thrill and delight of the world of fairies, and in this book she articulated for the first time the history of that world in tradition and literature.
From every period and every country, poets and storytellers have described a magical world inhabited by elfin spirits. Capricious and vengeful, or beautiful and generous, they've held us in thrall for generations. And on a summer's morn,…
