Here are 100 books that The Girl of Dorcha Wood fans have personally recommended if you like
The Girl of Dorcha Wood.
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Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.
M.H. Woodscourt is amazing an amazing storyteller. One of her biggest strengths is bringing her characters to life. If you love character-driven fantasy stories, I highly recommend The Crow King. The settings are all places that I would love to visit in real life.
Gwyn's journey is filled with struggle and reward and exciting twists and turns.
Magic is against the law. Will Gwyn risk execution to save his brother? The Crow King has outlawed magic. Despite the kingdom's edict, Gwyn plunges into the ancient and deadly True Wood to find a magical cure for his dying brother. Within the shadowed realm, he must fend off more than violent and fallen fae-like Ilidreth when he learns the king is out to stop him at whatever cost. On his desperate quest, he is joined by a unicorn, a quirky girl, and the maddest of the fallen fae. Together they must outrun enchanted crows and enemy armies, and face…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.
Assassin's Odyssey makes you rethink everything. Which is more important: loyalty or justice? Is being loyal to someone who is evil right, or is it right to betray that? As you read Caleb’s book, you find yourself being swayed a little toward each side. Answers are never black and white. This book makes you realize the truth lies in the middle. And in my humble opinion, a book that makes you think is a good thing.
Ancient Greece, a country filled with rulers vying to keep their power as democracy grows. With a thirst for domination, King Aeneas sends his two best assassins, Adonis and Selene, to the neighboring region of Arcadia in the hope of expanding his reign.
They must kill King Argus.
Adonis, a well-respected captain in the assassin company is loyal to only three things; King Aeneas, his land, and Selene.
His fellow captain, Selene is as cunning as she is beautiful. Her passion for Adonis is only matched by her pursuit of Greek justice.
Both are challenged by their King’s request. Will…
Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.
Hunt gives us a different type of werewolf. One who is just trying to find his place in the world. His journey gave me all the feels. I loved being a part of Josh’s journey and seeing him find a life instead of just going through the motions of day-to-day life.
Discover an exciting YA supernatural romance series about vengeful werewolves, a desperate love, and the darkness in everyone’s heart. Perfect for fans of "Twilight" and the "Shiver" series!
Blue eyes, raven hair—and a terrible secret.
Life in Shatterlake is pretty laid back. I go to high school, live on a farm, and lead a normal, quite life. When I meet Josh, however, there is something intriguing about this young man. He’s gentle and kind, but always cautious and distant. As my feelings for him grow, I make a horrifying discovery.
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…
Picking up a fantasy novel and getting away from real-world problems is an escape for me. Even though many of these issues don’t exist in our lives, we can still learn from the way the characters deal with their struggles. We can find compassion and empathy and maybe see that there are two sides to every story. Along the way, we also get to see stunning vistas and amazing, mythical creatures.
Alexis is an incredible storyteller. She takes her readers on an amazing journey filled with fantastic descriptions that use all of the senses. Her characters are real, well-developed, believable people with problems, insecurities, and the hope to make things better. Her settings are stunning. And the plot is amazing!
If my father finds out I’m secretly raising an orphaned dragon, he’ll kill it. Thank the gods for my brother’s help. In the same breath, curse him for sticking by me as I likely dig our graves deeper with each desperate decision.
My name is Mirren, and until now, my greatest ambition has been to stay clear of our father’s temper as best I can. But all that’s changed with my dragon’s life on the line. I only have one option to keep her from starving to death...
Compete.
Desperate choices must be made with the approaching Seventh Year Trials…
As a university historian and archaeologist my focus has been the Early Middle Ages. In the 1990s I wrote several books about the fifth and sixth centuries which barely mentioned Arthur but popular histories and films based on his story just kept coming, so I decided to look again at his story and work out how and why it developed as it did. I have published three well-received books on the subject, each of which builds on the one before, plus articles that have been invited to be included in edited volumes. I disagree with much in the five books above but collectively they reflect the debate across my lifetime. It is a great debate, I hope you enjoy it.
Oliver Padel is a linguist specializing in early Welsh and Cornish and as such the ideal guide to Arthur’s presence in early Celtic literature. While acknowledging that the earliest datable instances come in the Historia Brittonum in 829-30, his view is that Arthur began as a figure of Celtic mythology and was only later converted into a pseudo-historical figure fixed in the past. In that sense, the early Arthur is the individual in the Historia Brittonum in the section called Mirabilia (Wonders), where he is used as a way of explaining landscape features and the names given to them, who has then been adapted to be a British general fighting 12 battles in chapter 56. This has strongly influenced ways of looking at the evidence in recent years and it deserves our attention.
Personally, I don’t agree with it for two reasons. First of all is the whole issue of…
A fascinating survey of the numerous references to Arthur found in medieval Welsh literature emphasising the diverse literary genres used and the multifaceted portrayal of the character. New edition.
My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!
This classic and unsurpassed study of iconography and literature pertaining to deities and various types of symbolism found in Celtic myth, I think has often been overlooked by students... as well as by enthusiasts, who inexplicably prefer trying to discern the veracities of topics related to Celtic paganism through online chat rooms, where many posts (including heated arguments and mind-boggling claims and posturing) rarely seem to culminate in any kind of helpful or accurate conclusions. And readers and seekers deserve better!
I would highly recommend that people step away from the phone, and pick up this book! So many of the questions that never seem to get answered on social media are both answered and clarified in this excellent work (which I use myself!). The chapters talk about a variety of gods and goddesses, and mythic themes (with examples from Britain, Ireland, Gaul, and the Continent) including horned gods, the…
Although some aspects of pre-Roman and pre-Christian beliefs remain shrouded in mystery, the author of this comprehensive, profusely illustrated volume contends that neither the Roman invasion of Britain nor the coming of Christianity eliminated pagan religious practice. Dr Anne Ross, who speaks Gaelic and Welsh, writes from wide experience of living in Celtic speaking communities where she has traced vernacular tradition. She employs archaeological and anthropological evidence, as well as folklore, to provide broad insight into the early Celtic world. She begins by examining Celtic places of worship, the shrines and sanctuaries in which sacred objects were housed and from…
Resonant Blue and Other Stories
by
Mary Vensel White,
The first collection of award-winning short fiction from the author of Bellflower and Things to See in Arizona, whose writing reflects “how we can endure and overcome our personal histories, better understand our ancestral ones, and accept the unknown future ahead.”
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love that this book is a treasure chest of ancient stories passed down by word of mouth for countless generations. The Irish were originally a separate nation of Celts, with their own set of gods and heroes and warriors, their own idiosyncratic characters like shape-shifters, fairies, and leprechauns. I love that Lady Gregory spent years collecting these stories from the locals on her native West Coast, starting with her own nanny.
What I love most about this book is that it was a best seller when the rebels of 1916 were young and that they were raised on some of these same stories of courage, fortitude and yes, trickery. These wild characters were the role models of young developing Irish rebels at the turn of the century.
Lady Augusta Gregory's Irish Myths and Legends, or Gods and Fighting Men as it was first titled in 1904, is an essential collection of Irish myths, legends and folk tales gathered by Gregory from Irish oral story tellers at the close of the nineteenth century.
These epic tales are divided into two parts: the first charts the coming of the mythic Tuatha De Danaan to Ireland, the lives of Manannan and Lugh, and the tragedy of the Children of Lir. The second part follows the exploits and trials of Finn Mac Cumhal, the Fianna, Oisin, and the love story of…
As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true?
The first book in the trilogy, Key of Light, hooked me from the opening page and the rather sassy Malory Price who is driving in a storm to an intriguing dinner invitation and worrying about the bad day she’s just had. A thoroughly delightful woman, a born organizer, with a warrior streak a mile wide who sets off on a quest with her newfound friends to hunt for a mystical key with the power to lift the enchantment cast on three sleeping Celtic demi-goddesses.
I always love seeing how Nora Roberts crafts a boy meets girl story with a touch of Celtic fantasy. A fun read. A blend of myth, magic, and romance amid the backdrop of a hunt for a mystical key. Who could ask for more?
The pleasure of your company is desired for cocktails and conversation. 8pm, 4th September. Warrior's Peak. You are the Key. The lock awaits.
When Malory Price is issued with the above invitation she is naturally suspicious, especially as Warrior's Peak is a local mansion house straight out of a Hollywood horror movie. But with her overdraft at crisis limit and on the verge of losing her job at a local art gallery, she has little to lose by attending the event.
But Malory is about to get more than she bargained for. At Warrior's Peak she finds that she and…
I have been a student of Druidry since the mid-1990s and I have also had a passion for history and mythology since I received a children’s version of “The Twelve Labours of Hercules” when I was around 7 years old. I’ve read pretty much all the major stories and texts in relation to Celtic myth and Druid lore (particularly from Ireland), sometimes in multiple versions, so I think I have a fair idea of what is useful or worth reading.
This book is over 100 years old but it is still one of the best compilations of mythology about Ireland and Wales.
It gives potted versions of the stories, an excellent summary of what the myths are about, covering a vast number of them. It also has some lovely black and white illustrations.
This splendidly illustrated study by the distinguished Celticist T. W. Rolleston masterfully retells the great Celtic myths and illuminates the world that spawned them. Focusing principally on Irish myths, the book first takes up the history and religion of the Celts, the myths of the Irish invasion and the early Milesian kings. What follows is pure enchantment as you enter the timeless world of heroic tales centered around the Ulster king Conor mac Nessa and the Red Branch Order of chivalry (Ultonian cycle). These are followed by the tales of the Ossianic cycle, which center on the figure of Finn…
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken…
I am a retired history teacher with 36 years of teaching experience in high school and college. I am also a passionate world traveler and for over four decades led students on overseas tours. In 2012 (the year I retired from teaching) I released my first novel, Widder’s Landing set in Kentucky in the early 1800s. One of my main characters came from a family of Irish Catholics—and he is featured in Rebels Abroad. Ireland has always fascinated me and in my nine trips to the country, I smelled the peat fires, tasted the whiskey, listened to the music and the lyrical tales told by the tour leaders—and came to love the people.
To comprehend the present, one must examine the past and observe the undercurrents that forge a people and their nation.
Rutherfurd’s Rebels of Ireland succeeds brilliantly in this endeavor. The families in this novel deal with the real historical events that shaped Irish destiny. They drew me into their lives and swept me along on a journey through time. When I finally emerged, I felt as if I had witnessed history, and lived it alongside them!
The Princes of Ireland, the first volume of Edward Rutherfurd’s magisterial epic of Irish history, ended with the disastrous Irish revolt of 1534 and the disappearance of the sacred Staff of Saint Patrick. The Rebels of Ireland opens with an Ireland transformed; plantation, the final step in the centuries-long English conquest of Ireland, is the order of the day, and the subjugation of the native Irish Catholic population has begun in earnest.
Edward Rutherfurd brings history to life through the tales of families whose fates rise and fall in each generation: Brothers who must choose between fidelity to their ancient…
