Here are 87 books that The House Witch fans have personally recommended if you like
The House Witch.
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As a queer speculative fiction writer, I often find myself drawn to themes of identity. Reckoning with identity and defining your own (and redefining, and redefining, and redefining) is a critical part of the queer experience in the cis-hetero norms of the real world. Fantasy and science fiction have always given readers a lens to see themselves through, and many queer readers have found their own definitions between the lines of a book. The protagonists and stories in these books couldn’t be more different, but each offers a unique and compelling vision of discovering—or making—a place for themself in their magical world.
Thirsty for more buff orc lesbians? Legends & Lattes serves up a mug of warm, cozy queer fulfillment. Viv was an adventurer, but she no longer wants to be. Despite her battle scars and intimidating looks, she longs to open her own quiet coffee shop.
The journey to small-business success has challenges, but her determination to live on her own terms brews up a staff of misfits that become a queer-found family. This quiet, low-stakes novel is as sweet as an almond croissant and will leave you hungry for more.
High fantasy, low stakes - with a double-shot of coffee.
After decades of adventuring, Viv the orc barbarian is finally hanging up her sword for good. Now she sets her sights on a new dream - for she plans to open the first coffee shop in the city of Thune. Even though no one there knows what coffee actually is.
If Viv wants to put the past behind her, she can't go it alone. And help might arrive from unexpected quarters. Yet old rivals and new stand in the way of success. And Thune's shady underbelly could make it all…
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 the author of an award-winning indie book series that focuses on a pretty unusual main character: a middle-aged mother actively parenting three kids in an insane situation. I love unexpected situations and fresh or unusual characters, and the books I recommend here reflect that.
This book does one of my favorite things: deconstructing and reconstructing tropes. It goes ahead and uses Jin, the main character, to critique everything that doesn’t quite make sense in the cultivation subgenre, and then it later uses other characters to validate the same tropes it earlier poked fun at.
On top of that, the contrast between a relaxed Canadian farmer and his ultra-chuuni “death before dishonor” rooster never fails to be delightful.
A laugh-out-loud, slice-of-life martial-arts fantasy about . . . farming????
Jin Rou wanted to be a cultivator. A man powerful enough to defy the heavens. A master of martial arts. A lord of spiritual power. Unfortunately for him, he died, and now I’m stuck in his body.
Arrogant Masters? Heavenly Tribulations? All that violence and bloodshed? Yeah, no thanks. I’m getting out of here.
Farm life sounds pretty great. Tilling a field by hand is fun when you’ve got the strength of ten men—though maybe I shouldn’t have fed those Spirit Herbs to my pet rooster. I’m not used to…
As someone with ADHD, anxiety, and a brain prone to rumination, life can be turbulent. Fantasy has long been my preferred method of escapism, and when I discovered the cozy variety a few years ago, I was immediately enthralled. It gives me that warm-fuzzy feeling I so desire in troubling times, while still providing my dopamine-deficient brain the hits it needs to remain immersed. More than anything, I want to share with others the way that cozy fantasy makes me feel. Crafting such fiction is my purpose.
I started this novel on the way home from a convention, and despite my intention of reading for a moment before having a well-earned nap, I just couldn’t put it down. RC Joshua’s descriptions of the drinks within are so captivating that I may or may not have spent hundreds of dollars on tea (and related accessories) the day after finishing this book.
If I wasn’t already addicted to boba (or bubble tea, as we call it in Australia), this novel would have further devastated my wallet.
Arthur never knew the comfort of home—until he died. Now, reborn in a vibrant demon world, he's serving up more than just tea: he's crafting the life he always dreamed of, one friendship at a time.
Arthur didn’t plan on being reincarnated to a world full of demons. But after the initial misunderstandings were cleared away, he found himself exactly where he wanted to be. In a world that was nice.
It doesn’t take long before a community of friendly demons forms up around Arthur, helping him find his place in this new world. With each bubble that rises in…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
As someone with ADHD, anxiety, and a brain prone to rumination, life can be turbulent. Fantasy has long been my preferred method of escapism, and when I discovered the cozy variety a few years ago, I was immediately enthralled. It gives me that warm-fuzzy feeling I so desire in troubling times, while still providing my dopamine-deficient brain the hits it needs to remain immersed. More than anything, I want to share with others the way that cozy fantasy makes me feel. Crafting such fiction is my purpose.
I loved the repeated subversion of frustrating romance tropes in this book. I never thought I’d enjoy a LitRPG romcom so much, or that it could even work as a concept, but here we are.
Though I may not be hard to fool, this novel baited me countless times, only to pull me back from the brink just before I turned my Kindle into a frisbee. It takes a certain awareness to pull off such trickery, and Mystic Neptune possesses it in spades.
A reluctant heroine finds unexpected love when she’s sent to assassinate a lonely dark lord in the first book of this cozy romantasy series.
Henrietta Doryn has never enjoyed fighting. She’d rather be in the kitchen baking cookies. But it’s her duty as Warrior Princess to face off against the forces of evil. As such, she’s unceremoniously shooed from her kingdom to go eliminate the all-powerful Dark Lord next door.
Keith Monfort has never enjoyed ruling with an iron fist. He’d prefer to be in his workroom tinkering with practical magic. But it’s his duty to lead the Dark Enchanted…
Of the 16 books I have written, to date, every single one of them features strong women. I like to think I'm channeling a little bit of myself in there, or perhaps I'm simply projecting the sort of strength I'd like to possess. I don't know. What I do know is that with all that's going on in the world, it's more important now than ever before to remember how strong we can all be. To be strong women, to support strong women, to seek inspiration from strong women, and to inspire the next generation of women to do the same. And that's why I've chosen to recommend books on this subject.
This was a Plot Twist book club pick, and it turned out to be one of my favorites of the last year. Based on three different women from the same lineage, one from the 1600s, one from the 40s, and the third in our current time, it follows their unique struggles with who they are against what society and the people around them expect.
Altha, in the 1600s, has been shunned from society for being different and is then accused and tried for witchcraft. She's thrown in jail and starved to the brink of death, but she perseveres through the trial, doing what she needs to do to survive. Violet, in the 40s, has her life torn apart at just sixteen, the fall out of those events leaving her cast out, pregnant, and terrified. But somehow, she gets up, carries on, and forges a new path for herself. Kate, in…
An Indie Next March 2023 Pick • A LibraryReads March 2023 Pick • An Amazon "Best Books of the Year So Far" 2023 Pick
"A brave and original debut, Weyward is a spellbinding story about what may transpire when the natural world collides with a legacy of witchcraft." ––Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The London Séance Society
I am a Weyward, and wild inside.
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the…
I am a middle-grade author and hold a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. As an artist of multiple disciplines, I have always been fascinated by the tiny details in the world around me and the ways I can connect those details to how I understand myself, my experiences, and the human experience. Some may find such interests odd, eccentric, “whimsical,” perhaps, but I believe these fascinations inspire the most unique stories—stories that can only be told by the artist who is noticing, connecting, reflecting, creating. When I’m not writing, I enjoy teaching art and dance to elementary students.
Kat is a marvelously whimsical character. She embodies the wit and charm of her 1800s time period, while simultaneously allowing her modern spunk to shine through with her bravery, sass, and quirkiness. She is not afraid to be herself and to fight for those around her to be true to themselves as well.
"I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin. I made it almost to the end of my front garden . . ."
Magic may be the greatest scandal in Regency England. But that's not going to stop Kat Stephenson when there are highwaymen to foil, sinister aristocrats to defeat . . . and true loves to capture for her two older sisters.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I love including social issues and controversial topics in my plots. I love underdogs and the downtrodden. I enjoy unique and quirky characters with excellent, appropriate, and sometimes noir-ish voices. Twists and major reveals in genre books and movies are also very important to me. I’m not a subject matter expert in much of anything I write about (thank goodness for the internet), except for one novel yet to be published, which is a major catharsis for me.
I was overwhelmed by this crazy, lovable, frightening novel. It fit right in with my paranormal/horror bend when I read it many years ago, and it provoked my interest in writing a few titles in the genre.
It fits the unique, quirky character theme perfectly with a first person narrative by a young, charismatic fry cook-writer-memoirist named Odd (real name) Thomas with a sixth sense, able to see demons when they arrive just before tragedy occurs. Yowza. His accomplice is his girlfriend and love interest, aptly named Stormy, who is not similarly gifted and seems to have more common sense than Odd.
Meet Odd Thomas, the unassuming young hero of Dean Koontz’s dazzling New York Times bestseller, a gallant sentinel at the crossroads of life and death who offers up his heart in these pages and will forever capture yours.
“The dead don’t talk. I don’t know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Sometimes the silent souls who seek out Odd want justice. Occasionally their otherworldly tips help him prevent a crime. But this time it’s different.
A stranger comes to Pico Mundo, accompanied by a horde…
I’ve lived in the same place for a long time—a complicated yet beautiful place that I love and love to observe. I’ve seen a lot of change, and a lot of folks come and go in my neighborhood and within the walls of my own house. Looking at a building down the street, I can see it two paint jobs ago, the moods of former owners and friends still imprinted there. I’m becoming a relative old-timer here—while the neighborhood sees repeated turnover, I dig in harder. My long track of settledness has nurtured a tendency to chronicle this humble place, to write one version of its story.
I adore the way award-winning chef Iliana Regan writes. She intertwines raw, challenging images with sublime writing about food, cooking, and running a restaurant. Growing up in a rundown Indiana farmhouse, as a child, she locates a natural ability for food and foraging, undergirded by hard-won knowledge from her father.
Meanwhile, she and her entire family sense her queerness from a very young age. Her origins aren’t super pretty; she flips them inside out and creates her own form of beauty from austerity. The house and surrounding woods inextricably inform her worldview as a chef, and her evolution is glorious and arduous.
A singular, powerfully expressive debut memoir that traces one chef's struggle to find her place and what happens once she does.
Burn the Place is a galvanizing memoir that chronicles Iliana Regan's journey from foraging on the family farm to running her Michelin-starred restaurant, Elizabeth. Her story is raw like that first bite of wild onion, alive with startling imagery, and told with uncommon emotional power.
Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Northwest Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan preternaturally understood to pick…
World War 2 has always interested me and my curiosity was strengthened a few years ago when my mother told me I was born illegitimate and my father had been the civil engineer building a nearby bomber airfield and a lodger with her parents. She was ashamed of what happened and lost contact with my father before I was born. Consequently, I wrote my first novel Unplanned. I then met the daughter of the Berlin mother in Abandoned in Berlin, and found itnatural to pursue this story, given what I had discovered about my own upbringing. The effort has taught me to seek to forgive but never to forget.
This is a story about the best-selling Viennese cookbook that was stolen by the Nazis and republished under someone else’s name during the War. The text and color photographs are identical, but the names of the authors are different. The original author, Alice Urbach, who was Jewish, had her book “Aryanized” for over 80 years, even though her hands are still featured in the illustrations. It shows how respectable businesses and individuals can continue to profit from the persecution of Jews long after the Holocaust ended.
I found this a quite remarkable story that has only recently been published in English. It demonstrates the extremes to which the Nazis went to stamp out anything that was Jewish. Only in 2021 were the rights returned to the original author posthumously.
"Unputdownable . . . Urbach has also retold the tragic Holocaust story in quite unforgettable lines" A.N. Wilson
"This fascinating book, by Alice's granddaughter Karina Urbach, shines a spotlight on this lesser-known aspect of Nazi looting" The Times
"A gripping piece of 20th-century family history but also something much more original: a rare insight into the 'Aryanisation' of Jewish-authored books during the Nazi regime" Financial Times
What happened to the books that were too valuable to burn?
Alice Urbach had her own cooking school in Vienna, but in 1938 she was forced to flee to England, like so many others.…
The passion I have for food was born during my childhood in France when I learned how to cook and bake with my mother, and it never faded away. I still continue to explore, and I have the chance to participate in more than sixty tastings a year. When traveling, I always prepare my trips by searching the web for unique restaurants, coffee roasters, breweries, and local bakeries. When I interview culinary leaders, I am curious about their innovation and their creative process. Chef Elizabeth Falkner wrote in my book foreword, “Emmanuel genuinely seems like he is trying to solve a puzzle, which is why his book is an important piece of writing.”
I had the chance to interview chef Edward Lee on my podcast ‘flavors unknown’ and to personally experience his passion for recent American food culture. The importance of immigrant cuisine in today’s food described in his book was a great influence on me when I was working on my book. He tackles the question of “authenticity” in immigrant cooking. He says that authentic is not the correct word. Immigrant food is “frozen in time,” reflecting the culinary moment when the immigrants left their homes. I love Edward Lee’s book as it captures the complexity of American cuisine.
American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavours. But for Edward Lee, who, like Anthony Bourdain or Gabrielle Hamilton, is as much a writer as he is a chef, that first surprising bite is just the beginning. What about the people behind the food? What about the traditions, the innovations, the memories?
A natural-born storyteller, Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the US. There's a Cambodian couple in Lowell, Massachusetts, and their efforts to re-create…
