60 Books Like The Amber Owl

I love the way this haunting memoir blends personal experience, literature, and folklore into an enchanting commentary on the relationship between women and the sea. I was swept away by the lyrical prose as Runcie ushered me through ocean landscapes and mythic stories. Beautifully written and researched, Salt on Your Tongue explores issues like pregnancy and motherhood as it introduces readers to artistic and scientific explorations of the sea. Its shape, which is divided into sections named after the stars in the Pleiades, ebbs and flows like the tides. I loved it!

I love Shveta Thakrar’s use of descriptive imagery as she weaves the contemporary young adult world into the enchanted forest realm of the yakshas. This book, which is full of fairy tale imagery and steeped in Indian mythology, brings readers to the Night Market, a magical place where the Fae sell their wares. The main character, Ridhi, creates natural perfumes, and Thakrar’s writing is so immersive the pages smell like spring rains and bouquets of wildflowers. Divining the Leaves is a beautiful exploration of folklore not often circulated in Western culture, and it lingers like a favorite scent!

I was so drawn in by this book--it was incredibly cathartic and moving!

I love everything Juliet Marillier writes. She is so good at using her knowledge of folklore to create magical stories in which the heroine must save the day. This book departs from her usual Celtic setting, taking us instead to Transylvania in the time of the Ottoman Empire and a reimagining of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.

The setting takes five sisters from a crumbling castle at the edge of the Wildwood to the Faerie Kingdom at the heart of that wood. I love how the Wildwood seems to tailor itself to the ages and personalities of the sisters. So, five-year-old Stela spends her time with cute and playful creatures, while elder sister Tatiana falls under the spell of Sorrow, one of the Night People. Protagonist Jena has her own love story with the talking frog Gogu.

There were so many things I loved about Son of the Shadows when I stumbled upon it in a second-hand book store decades ago.

The story was immersive and intense. But the quality I loved most had to be that, buried beneath its movie-like adventures, its poetic blend of fantasy and history, and its spiritually rich thoughts, was a story of redemption.

I found so few authors allow for the kind of redemption that tempestuous Bran was given. My whispering hope that he would come out at the end of the novel no longer broken blossomed into full-blown wonder as his damaged soul took its first steps towards daylight… and he started living again. I thought to myself, “I'm gonna write just like that when I grow up.”

How could I not love a book set in an alternate Renaissance Venice? When modern-day teenager Lucien “stravagates” in his sleep to Belezza, he discovers a world of gondolas and bridges, spies and alchemy. I love the way Venetian customs are ramped up to fantasy proportions—for example, the traditional “marriage with the sea” involves the ruling Duchessa actually plunging into the lagoon—or does it?

The book moves between the fantastical Bellezza and the “real world” of modern-day Britain, where Lucien is a teenage cancer patient. Lucien’s increasing illness in our world provides added jeopardy to the adventures in Belezza, where Lucien teams up with Ariana—a plucky girl who wants to become the city’s first female mandolier (gondolier)—to save Belezza from the machinations of Rinaldo di Chimici.

My favorite fantasy novels are those that take place in real and recognizable worlds because they allow me to imagine more clearly what it could be like if the marvelous, the magical, and the mythical were just as real as the kitchen sink and the laundry basket.

Susanna Clark’s iconic first novel, set against the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, is built upon a recognizable and very credibly created backdrop of social and economic unrest, bloody conflict, and international politics—at the heart of which is the quest of the eponymous Strange and Norrell to bring real magic back to the world. 

The two magicians are the only people able to make the magic work—and as they become more successful in their endeavors, they become the most famous men of their day—helping the Duke of Wellington to defeat Napoleon and setting the country on its heels with their… show more.

The development of both of these characters was amazing. Sometimes, you read a book where you relate to one character and not as much to the other. Not with this book!

Both voices and stories were gripping by themselves. Then, when they met, the explosions happened and you saw two “people” with the same background (but under vastly different circumstances), merge. 

I can’t resist the combination of magic, music, and forests. Plus my mother grew up in Canada, and I’ve meandered along those berry- and bear-rich pebbly beaches. In this book, magic, fey-inhabited Wales crashes into modern Ottawa. De Lint’s setting and style seized my soul as a young adult reader. That yearning youngster is not only still part of me, but part of everyone, I hope.

This is the first book in a series that goes on and on, following the life of a couple of characters as the world changes around them. Spanning two different worlds, this first book builds up a number of characters you want to keep reading about. As the series continues through time, new threats to the two worlds introduce new characters. What I like most about this series is it keeps moving the worlds forward instead of stagnating.