6 Fantasy Books in Which Real Cities Are Imbued with New Magic

Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Yucatán & Mexico City
An unusual pair stand at the heart of this mythology-driven quest novel: Hun-Kamé, the Mayan god of death, and Casiopea Tun, the mortal girl who inadvertently releases him from his prison. Together, their journey to return Hun-Kamé to his rightful throne in the underworld Xibalba takes them far from Mérida, Yucatán’s largest city, including a stop off in Mexico City—providing another in a series of Moreno-Garcia’s vibrant renderings of that city. But Hun-Kamé’s power is rooted in Mérida; in fact, the farther he travels from his home base, the weaker and more mortal he becomes. For Casiopea, her small town is the only life she’s known—until she gets swept up in a game of gods and demons. As much as it is a compelling fantasy road trip, Gods of Jade and Shadow is a paean to Mexico and its folklore.

The Devourers, by Indra Das
Kolkata, India
On its surface, The Devourers is a story about stories—and stories about werewolves, in particular. It is also a quiet (but gory) meditation on violence, morality, and the Indian society in which it takes place. On the moonlit streets of modern-day Kolkata, a college professor, Alok, chances to meet a stranger with a bloody and twisted tale to tell. From there, the narrative takes two tracks: one a recounting of traumatic clash in 17th-century India and one of the mysterious relationship between two strangers, and between truth and fiction, in the mesmerizing atmosphere of Kolkata.

Smoke, by Dan Vyleta
London
Consider one of London’s most historically prominent qualities—its smog, its pollution, its impurities—and you can easily see the genesis of Dan Vyleta’s inventive and suspenseful literary fantasy. In an alternate England, all the wickedness inside you, down to every last vile thought, issues from your body in a physical plume of smoke. What results is a class system, where the wealthy who master the art of controlling their smoke rise to the top and reside in pristine country estates, while the streets of London teem with the bilious smog of its low-rung workers and families. Set against two boys’ quest for truth at an upper-crust boarding school, the story finds a new way to skewer Victorian proprieties.

Borderline, by Mishell Baker
Los Angeles
Could there be a better setting for a faerie story than Los Angeles, the city where any flight of fantasy seems within the realm of possibility? The titular word “borderline” here refers to a couple of things: First is Millie Roper, recovering from the consequences of a failed suicide attempt and coming to terms with her Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. When she’s contacted by the top-secret (and a little sketchy) Arcadia Project, however, the borderline of emphasis becomes the quite-literal portal between the streets of LA and the world of the fey. The predicament Millie finds herself mired in is a stew of inter-world complications: the glitz of Hollywood on a collision course with the glamour of the fey.

A Criminal Magic, by Lee Kelly
Washington, D.C.
Kelly manages to capture the essence not just of a city but of a decade in her tale of boozy sorcery set in Prohibition-era D.C. In this alternate Jazz Age, the 18th Amendment has passed, and the “shine” fueling the underground market is actually an addictive byproduct of magic with a particularly short shelf life. The two characters at the heart of this story, Joan and Alex, swirl in the shadows of the District’s underbelly, and the contrast between the powerful Shaw Gang cartel and the probing government Prohibition Unit sets up a high-stakes conflict that sizzles from start to finish.

Food of the Gods, by Cassandra Khaw
Kuala Lumpur
The misadventures of Rupert Wong find him everywhere from the Chinese realm of the dead to London, where he stumbles into the later years of the erstwhile gods of Ancient Greece. But the real and raucous supernatural chaos happens in Kuala Lumpur, where Rupert serves as a jack-of-all-trades for a slew of gods and spirits with roots in Malaysian, Chinese, and, yes, Greek mythologies. Ghosts inhabit his tattoos. Local ghouls hire him as their cannibal chef. And the Dragon King enlists his sleuthing skills. There’s a lot going on in Rupert’s tortured life and it’s all well suited to the sprawling and bustling scene in Kuala Lumpur.