43 articles
A Discovery of Witches
A Discovery of Witches is Deborah Harkness's 2011 debut novel, first of the All Souls series, about witch-historian Diana Bishop and vampire Matthew Clairmont and the manuscript Ashmole 782 at Oxford's Bodleian Library; adapted into a 2018–2022 TV series.
A Drop of Corruption
A Drop of Corruption is a 2025 fantasy murder mystery by American author Robert Jackson Bennett, a sequel to The Tainted Cup, published by Del Rey in April 2025.
A Sorceress Comes to Call
A Sorceress Comes to Call is a 2024 standalone fantasy novel by T. Kingfisher (Tor Books), a dark reimagining of the Grimms' "The Goose Girl" in a Regency-inspired setting, following Cordelia and her sorceress mother Evangeline; a 2025 Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Best Novel nominee.
Bookshops & Bonedust
Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree's 2023 Tor prequel to Legends & Lattes, follows young orc mercenary Viv recovering in the seaside town of Murk, where she befriends bookseller Fern and baker Maylee.
Brimstone (Hart novel)
Brimstone is a dark fantasy romance novel by Callie Hart, a #1 New York Times bestselling author. It is the second book in the Fae & Alchemy trilogy, published in 2025.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a 2025 standalone novel by V. E. Schwab. It follows three women turned into vampires across three different historical settings.
Cozy fantasy
Cozy fantasy, also called cottage fantasy, is a low-stakes, comfort-focused fantasy subgenre codified by Travis Baldree's 2022 Legends & Lattes; defined by found family, gentle domestic stakes, and cozy-mystery-derived boundaries rather than epic conflict.
Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy: fantasy subgenre blending horror elements with fantastic settings; coined variously by Bennett, Grant, and Wagner; distinct from grimdark; spans Berserk, Elric, Sandman, Dark Souls, Ravenloft.
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Dungeon Crawler Carl is a LitRPG science fantasy series by Matt Dinniman about a man and his cat surviving a deadly dungeon aired as an alien reality show.
Ella Enchanted
Ella Enchanted (1997) is Gail Carson Levine's Newbery Honor-winning debut, a Cinderella retelling in which Ella of Frell is cursed at birth with obedience by the fairy Lucinda. Adapted loosely into a 2004 Anne Hathaway film.
Fantasy
Fantasy, also known as fantasy fiction, is a genre of fiction defined by magic, extraordinary beings, or impossible events, with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as its defining work.
Going Postal
Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel (2004), first of the Moist von Lipwig books, in which a con artist must revive Ankh-Morpork's Post Office against the clacks semaphore monopoly; adapted for Sky1 in 2010.
Grimdark
Grimdark is a speculative-fiction subgenre, especially fantasy, marked by violence, dystopia, and moral ambiguity; the term comes from the Warhammer 40,000 tagline and contrasts with noblebright, with key authors Martin, Abercrombie, Lawrence, and Cook.
Hemlock & Silver
Hemlock & Silver is a 2025 dark Snow White reimagining by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), published by Tor. Healer Anja, who drinks poisons to make antidotes, investigates Princess Snow's illness into a mirror world; NPR Best Book, Locus finalist.
Historical fantasy
Historical fantasy combines researched historical texture with fantastic elements, placing magic in a specific time and place. It can feature magic coexisting invisibly with ordinary history.
Iron Flame
Iron Flame is the 2023 second novel in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean romantasy series, following Fourth Wing. It follows Violet Sorrengail's second year at Basgiath War College against the venin, sold about 585,000 US hardcovers in week one, and precedes Onyx Storm.
Lanfear
Lanfear (Mierin Eronaile, Selene, Cyndane), a Forsaken in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time: strongest female channeler, drilled the Bore, obsessed with Lews Therin/Rand, killed by Moiraine, played by Natasha O'Keeffe on TV.
Lilith (novel)
Lilith: A Romance, George MacDonald's 1895 fantasy novel, his last and most enigmatic, in which Mr. Vane enters a mirror-world where Adam's first wife Lilith is redeemed by surrendering her will.
Low fantasy
Low fantasy is a fantasy subgenre where magic intrudes on the real, primary world, contrasted with high fantasy's invented secondary worlds; also framed by Mendlesohn as intrusion fantasy, with a contested magic-scarcity usage.
Mythopoeic Awards
Mythopoeic Awards: annual literary prizes of the Mythopoeic Society since 1971 for fantasy fiction (adult, young adult, children's) and scholarship on the Inklings and on myth and fantasy, presented at Mythcon.
One Dark Window
One Dark Window (2022) is Rachel Gillig's gothic romantasy debut and first Shepherd King duology novel, set in mist-locked Blunder where fever survivor Elspeth Spindle, host to the Nightmare spirit, quests to reunite twelve Providence Cards before Solstice; over 3 million duology copies sold.
Onyx Storm
Onyx Storm is a 2025 fantasy novel by Rebecca Yarros, the third in her Empyrean series about dragon riders at a war college, and the year's top-selling US title.
Quicksilver (Hart novel)
Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, book 1) is Callie Hart's 2024 dark romantasy about Saeris Fane, whose metal powers draw her through a quicksilver portal into a fae realm; a BookTok hit, New York Times No. 1 bestseller, and Netflix adaptation.
Romantic fantasy
Romantic fantasy, or romantasy, is a fiction genre blending fantasy worlds with a central love story that drives the plot. Key titles include Emma Bull's War for the Oaks (1987), Maas's ACOTAR, and Yarros's Fourth Wing; the genre generated an estimated $610 million in 2024.
Shield of Sparrows
Shield of Sparrows is Devney Perry's 2025 romantasy debut (Entangled Red Tower), first of a trilogy with Rites of the Starling and Seven and the Swift; princess Odessa Cross of Quentis is wed by treaty into monster-haunted Calandra.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell's 2024 DAW debut novel, is a Nebula and Locus Award-winning horror-fantasy romance in which the shapeshifting monster Shesheshen falls in love with Homily, a woman hunting a monster blamed for cursing her family.
Starling House
Starling House is a 2023 Southern Gothic fantasy novel by Alix E. Harrow (Tor), a Reese's Book Club pick and NYT bestseller set in fictional Eden, Kentucky, where Opal cleans the haunted mansion of Arthur Starling.
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery (S&S), a fantasy subgenre of violent small-scale adventures from Robert E. Howard's Conan to Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; term coined by Leiber in 1961, born in Weird Tales pulps, distinguished from high fantasy by personal stakes and villain-wielded magic.
Swordheart
Swordheart is a 2018 fantasy romance novel by T. Kingfisher, pen name of Ursula Vernon, about a widow who inherits an enchanted sword holding an immortal warrior.
Tad Williams bibliography
Tad Williams bibliography: complete works of US fantasy author Robert Paul Williams (born 1957), from Tailchaser's Song (1985) through Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Otherland, Shadowmarch, The Last King of Osten Ard, and the new Flan's Crows series.