The best fantasy books for people straying from the paths that were set for them

In This Vicious Grace the main character Alessa is the Finestra, a position designed for the one who can save their island from a terrible enemy.

She’s been kept in isolation, only allowed to interact with her suitors, people whose powers should compliment her and make it possible for her to fulfill her destiny. Except Alessa’s powers are so strong that she keeps killing her partners.

Now Alessa must grapple with the fact that if she can’t figure this out, everyone on the island she’s meant to protect will die. So, instead of accepting her faith, Alessa steps outside of the life that’s been prescribed for her, going against the religious standards set for the Finestra and looks for another path.

The writing is magnificent, the romance is so well paced and the characters really tug at your emotions. I loved seeing Alessa struggle with what she’s supposed to do and what she feels is the right path because I think a lot of us struggle with this. 

Of every set of triplet princesses, two must die so that one can be queen. This is the way things have been for centuries, so when this set of triplets comes of age, they are prepared for the brutality that awaits them.

To me, this was such a fascinating premise, and the book is so vivid that I literally dreamed of scenes while I was reading it. I loved seeing these sisters struggle against their prescribed lives, because I don’t want to follow someone else’s idea of what my life should look like. If you have power, like these sisters have gifts, or even without, we have choices to make, no matter what other people say.

We have to control our own lives, and these sisters are learning that while also trying to figure out a way to escape their fates. 

Tarisai was born with a wish in her heart, but not her wish. Her mother wants to use her to harm an old enemy, and Tarisai has no choice but to go along with it.

But as she finds her own found-family out in the world, she learns that there are some things more powerful than wishes. Her mother’s wish can only have so much power over her when she fights against her mother’s desires for her life. And Tarisai is stronger than she’s ever believed, which was an incredible twist to the plot.

I loved seeing Tarisai come into her own, while figuring out that she can control the shape of her future. 

Red has spent her childhood knowing that she was going to be sacrificed to the Wolf of the Wood.

It’s a fate she hasn’t quite accepted, but every thing she has done to fight it has faile.d She doesn’t want to be another girl killed by the forest, or the wolf. But things aren’t exactly what she expected when she finally meets the wolf.

And now, instead of a sacrifice to the woods ravenous appetite Red is prepared to fight, for herself and her wolf. She didn’t want to be the victim of her own story, so she changed the way it was going to be written, and that is something we all need to see.

Everyone of us has the power to change the path we are walking on, to stop being the victim in our own stories. 

Soraya is cursed to kill anything she touches. Except, what’s she always considered to be a curse is a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface.

Locked away by her family, Soraya has lived a life of insulation, one that she had resigned herself to, until things around her start to change. Seeing Soraya find her footing and release that wanting is not a dangerous thing, even if she just wants to be free is a powerful storyline.

If you’ve been stuck in a life that you no longer want to live, seeing someone else chose to be free is so cathartic, and it really resonated with me as a reader.