The best fantasy novels with protagonists mired in toxic family relationships

Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones classic award-winning favourite, featuring Chrestomanci - now a book with extra bits!

Everybody says that Gwendolyn Chant is a gifted witch with astonishing powers, so it suits her enormously when she is taken to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Her brother Eric (better known as Cat) is not so keen, for he has no talent for magic at all.

However, life with the great enchanter is not what either of them expects and sparks begin to fly!

Winner of the Guardian Award.

Cinderella is married to The Prince, and the Evil Stepsisters are banished to a pocket dimension for their punishment and rehabilitation. It’s Happily Ever After.

Or is it?

Jane and Charlie have been imprisoned for two years now, serving a sentence especially chosen by their stepsister as justice for her sufferings. It seems that they’re the only two people in the world besides Ellen who know that Ellen’s “sufferings” were a carefully manipulative campaign to win a prince and a crown; the two stepsisters merely collateral damage.

But now, trouble is brewing at the castle: death threats, torn gowns, ruined… show more.

Gruesome rites. Whispers of witches. Arabella’s past has caught up to her.

Arabella finally feels like she belongs. She’s settled into her role as the Bearer of St. Brigit’s Arcana. She has family, friends, and a purpose. And assisting the Phantasm Bureau has brought her close to handsome viscount Trey Shield, a formidable magician in his own right.

But then a prized racehorse is found butchered in a grisly and familiar rite. A beloved cousin arrives unexpectedly, bringing bad news. Arabella’s family secrets create a rift between her and Trey, one that is further complicated when his intended bride comes… show more.

A haunting, evocative and highly unusual romantic debut and now a Netflix Mandarin original drama premiering January 2020!

Seventeen-year-old Li Lan lives in 1890s Malaya with her quietly-ruined father, who returns one evening with a proposition - the fabulously wealthy Lim family want Li Lan to marry their son. The only problem is, he's dead. After a fateful visit to the Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also her desire for the Lims' handsome new heir. At night she is drawn into the Chinese afterlife - a world of ghost cities,… show more.

Brandon Sanderson - the international phenomenon who finished the Wheel of Time sequence - introduces a fantasy trilogy which overturns the expectations of readers and goes on to tell the epic story of evil overturned in a richly imagined world.

A thousand years ago evil came to the land and has ruled with an iron hand ever since. The sun shines fitfully under clouds of ash that float down endlessly from the constant eruption of volcanoes. A dark lord rules through the aristocratic families and ordinary folk are condemned to lives in servitude, sold as goods, labouring in the ash… show more.