Fantasy Genre Book Recommendations

Check out these recommendations if you’re new to fantasy or looking to escape reality. They helped me get into fantasy books.

Title: Sound The Gong

Author: Joan He

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Released: April 30, 2024

Series: Kingdom of Three (#2)

Pages: 368

Book: Amazon

Description: All her life, Zephyr has tried to rise above her humble origins as a no-name orphan. Now, she is a god in a warrior’s body and has never felt more powerless.

The warlordess Xin Ren holds the Westlands, but her position is tenuous. In the north, the empress remains a puppet under Miasma’s thumb. In the south, the alliance with Cicada is in pieces.

Fate has a winner in mind for the three kingdoms, but Zephyr has no intentions of respecting it. She will pay any price to see Ren succeed and make her enemies pay, especially the enigmatic Crow. What does do when she finds out the truth. . . Only the heavens know.

Genres: Fantasy, YA, Romance, Retellings

Title: Goddess of The River

Author: Vaishnavi Patel
Publisher: Orbit
Released: May 23, 2024
Series: NA

Pages: 496

Book: Amazon

Description: A mother and a son. A goddess and a prince. A curse and an oath. A river whose course will change the fate of the world.

Ganga, the joyful goddess of the river, serves as a caretaker to the mischievous godlings who roam her banks. But when their antics incur the wrath of a powerful sage, Ganga is cursed to become mortal, bound to her human form until she fulfils the obligations of the curse.

Though she knows nothing of mortal life, Ganga weds King Shantanu and becomes a queen, determined to regain her freedom no matter the cost. But in a cruel turn of fate, just as she is freed of her binding, she is forced to leave her infant son behind.

Her son, Prince Devavrata, unwittingly carries the legacy of Ganga's curse. When he makes an oath that he will never claim his father's throne, he sets in motion a chain of events that will end in a terrible and tragic war.

As the years unfold, Ganga and Devavrata are drawn together again and again, each confluence another step on a path that has been written in the stars, in this deeply moving and masterful tale of duty, destiny, and the unwavering bond between mother and son.

Genres: Fantasy, Mythology, Adult, Retellings

Title: The City of Brass
Author: S.A. Chakraborty
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Released: November 14, 2017
Series: The Daevabad Triology (#1)
Pages: 532
Book: Amazon

 

Description: Among the bustling markets of eighteenth-century Cairo, the city’s outcasts eke out a living swindling rich Ottoman nobles and foreign invaders alike.

But alongside this new world, the old stories linger. Tales of djinn and spirits. Of cities hidden among the swirling sands of the desert, full of enchantment, desire and riches. Where magic pours down every street, hanging in the air like dust.

Many wish their lives could be filled with such wonder, but not Nahri. She knows the trades she uses to get by are just tricks and sleights of hand; there’s nothing magical about them. She only wishes to one day leave Cairo, but as the saying goes…

Genres: Fantasy, Adult, Fiction

Title: Small Gods of Calamity
Author: Sam Kyung Yoo
Publisher: Interstellar Flight Press
Released: March 4, 2024
Series: NA
Pages: 144

Book: Amazon

Description: Ghosts that speak in smoke. Spirits with teeth like glass. A parasitic, soul-eating spirit worm has gone into a feeding frenzy, but all the Jong-ro Police Department’s violent crimes unit sees is a string of suicides. Except for Kim Han-Gil, Seoul’s only spirit detective. He’s seen this before. He’ll do anything to stop another tragedy from happening, even if that means teaming up with Shin Yoonhae, the man Han-gil believes is responsible for the horrifying aftermath of his mother’s last exorcism.

In their debut novella, Sam Kyung Yoo weaves a tale of mystical proportions that's part crime-thriller, part urban fantasy.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer, Paranormal

Title: The God And the Gumiho
Author: Sophie Kim
Publisher: Del Rey
Released: June 4, 2024
Series: Fate's Thread (#1)
Pages: 416

Book: Amazon

Description: Kim Hani has retired from a life of devouring souls. She is, simply put, too full. Once known as the infamous Scarlet Fox, she now spends her days working in a coffee shop and annoying a particularly irritating, if unfairly handsome, trickster god as often as she can.

That god is Seokga the Fallen. Exiled from the heavenly kingdom of Okhwang, he now begrudgingly resides in the mortal realm, working toward his redemption and suffering through his interactions with the particularly infuriating, if sneakily charming, gumiho barista at his favourite café. 

But when a powerful demon escapes from the underworld and threatens to end all of humanity, Okhwang’s emperor offers Seokga an enticing bargain: Kill this rogue creature, as well as the legendary and elusive Scarlet Fox, and he will be reinstated as a god. Hani, however, has no intention of being caught. Seokga might be a trickster god, but she has a trick of her own that he’ll never see coming: teaming up. As Seokga’s assistant, Hani will undermine and sabotage his investigation right under his overly pointy nose. Sure, she’ll help him kill the demon, but she certainly won’t allow him to uncover her secret identity while they’re at it.

As the bickering partners track their case down a path of mayhem and violence, the god and the gumiho find themselves inescapably drawn to each other. But will the unlikely couple stand together to prevent the apocalypse, or will they let their secrets tear them—and the world—apart?

Genres: Fantasy, Romance

Title: Breath of the Dragon
Author: Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee
Publisher: Wednesday books
Released: January 7, 2025
Series: Breathmarked (#1)
Pages: 352

Book: Amazon

Description: Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Earth to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s honour—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. There is no future in honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breath marked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place.

As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself.

Genres: Fantasy, YA, Dragons

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