7 New Fantasies You’ll Love…and 7 Past Favorites to Pair Them With

Like Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation? Try her novel Promise of Shadows!
Before the release of Justina Ireland’s buzzy new book, Dread Nation—a reimagining of history in which the Civil War ends abruptly due to a zombie uprising—she released mythological riffs Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows. Like Dread Nation, Promise of Shadows takes a premise we’re familiar with—demigods!—and flips it on its head. Zephyr Mourning would rather be a human than a Harpy, half-god assassin—until her sister is murdered and Zephyr uses a power no Harpy can access to save herself. It turns out she might not be a Harpy at all, but Nyx, a goddess destined to change the power balance of the world.

Like Shea Ernshaw’s The Wicked Deep? Try Kendall Kulper’s Salt & Storm!
Did you love the atmospheric, witchy town of Sparrow in The Wicked Deep? Then you’ll fall in love with Kendall Kulper’s Prince Island, an 1860s whaling town. Avery Roe wants to be the next witch of the island, continuing the family tradition of making charms that keep the island’s sailors at sea, but her prophetic dreams tell a different tale: that her mother will never allow her to use magic, and that she will be murdered. And her dreams have never been wrong. Escaping her future could force her to leave the island—or it could show that becoming the island’s witch requires a sacrifice she never thought she’d have to make.

Like Melissa Bashardoust’s Girls Made of Snow and Glass? Try Malinda Lo’s Ash!
Melissa Bashardoust’s gorgeous Girls Made of Snow and Glass came out at the end of 2017 and enchanted us all. This lush, Snow White–inspired fantasy reimagines Snow as a queer teenage girl—but it wasn’t the first to do so. For an OG queer fairy-tale retelling, check out Malinda Lo’s take on Cinderella, Ash. Left at the mercy of her stepmother, Ash sees only one hope for her future—that dangerous fairy Sidhean will claim her as his own and steal her away. But when she meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, Ash sees a different potential future, one full of love and happiness. Except Sidhean has already claimed her, and she cannot both escape that fate and keep Kaisa.

Like Amy Rose Capetta’s Echo After Echo? Try Lisa Mantchev’s Eyes Like Stars!
I adore fantasy novels set in theaters, so it’s no surprise I gravitated toward Echo After Echo when it released in October. But this fantasy-touched mystery isn’t the first YA novel to be set in a theater tinged with magic. In Eyes Like Stars, the first novel of Lisa Mantchev’s Théâtre Illuminata trilogy, lives every character every written into a play, bound by a magical book—and so, for some reason, does Bertie. But when the Book is threatened, putting her home and her friends in danger, Bertie must find out exactly how she ended up in the theatre to begin with, and whether she, too, is made of magic.

Like Rachel Hartman’s Tess of the Road? Try her novel Seraphina!
You may have seen folks—from readers to award-winning author E.K. Johnston—gushing about Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman’s recently released book. But before Tess, there was Seraphina: Hartman’s debut, set in the same world as her latest. The kingdom of Gorredd may seem peaceful on the surface, but tensions between humans and shapeshifting dragons have yet to fade. Musical genius Seraphina Dombegh joins the court—a court where dragons teach as scholars in their human form—as a member of the royal family is murdered. Forced into the investigation, Seraphina’s own secrets are increasingly at risk of being revealed, and her musical future lost to her.

Like Alisa Kwitney’s Cadaver & Queen? Try Mackenzi Lee’s This Monstrous Thing!
Alisa Kwitney’s Cadaver & Queen is a delightful retelling of Frankenstein—but what if a Frankenstein retelling unfolded within a world where Mary Shelley’s book exists? That’s what happens in Mackenzi Lee’s This Monstrous Thing, her debut before her much beloved The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. In 1818 Geneva, men made of clockwork live hidden away, cared for by illegal mechanics—and when Alasdair FInch’s life falls apart, he does the unthinkable and brings his brother Oliver back from the dead. More horror than man, Oliver is nothing like the brother Alasdair remembers—and when Frankenstein releases, causing the public to hunt for the Shadow Boys, Alasdair must turn to the brilliant and strange Dr. Geisler for help.

Like A.C. Gaughen’s Reign the Earth? Try Sarah Beth Durst’s Vessel!
Did you fall in love with Shalia in A.C. Gaughen’s desert fantasy Reign the Earth? Then I humbly put forward to you Liyana from Sarah Beth Durst’s Vessel, one of my favorite standalone YA fantasies. Trained her whole life to be the vessel of a goddess—taking careful care of her own body with the understanding that it will one day belong to another—Liyana is abandoned by her people when their goddess does not inhabit her body. She has two choices: stay in the desert and die or go find out why the gods have not arrived. Liyana sets off to find and free the gods from whatever is entrapping them, even if means her own life will be forfeit.