The best historical fantasies for transporting yourself to an alternate reality

Spinning Silver is a riff on Rumpelstiltskin set in medieval Russia. Naomi Novik goes lighter on the history here than she did in her Napoleonic-era Temeraire series, but Spinning Silver is still threaded with authentic details. The prejudice the Jewish protagonist and her family experience feels particularly real—and relevant. I also liked that she and the other female leads aren’t beauties (a common trope in fantasy). Instead, they’re resourceful and brave, facing down men and demons alike.

I’m less high on the rotating first-person point of view. But I loved Spinning Silver anyway. If you like historical fantasy, you probably will too. Novik is one of the best in the business.

Gods of Jade and Shadow starts as a Mexican Cinderella story, except that the fairy godmother is a Mayan god of death.

Not sold yet? What if I told you the god of death is also Prince Charming?

It’s an awesome premise.

I also enjoyed the setting. The story takes place in Jazz Age Mexico, shortly after the Mexican Revolution and at a time when pop culture was “all about the United States” and “reproducing its women, its dances, its fast pace.” Yet there’s far more old than new here. Mayan mythology threads throughout.

I didn’t always love the pace, but the book has an irresistible style. If you like fresh takes on classic fairy tales, Gods of Jade and Shadow is definitely worth a look.

At first, The Poppy War seems like an edgier version of Harry Potter: an outcast-at-the-academy story with a slightly older protagonist, drugs, and a few incidents of self-harm. Then the book veers into Hell.

The setting has a lot to do with it. The Poppy War takes place in a fantasy version of 20th-century China; the eventual focus is a magic-infused retelling of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which included a slaughter sometimes referred to as the “Forgotten Holocaust.”

So, yeah: not a bedtime story to enjoy with your kids. I also wouldn’t start The Poppy War if you’re not in a good headspace. But you shouldn’t ignore the history here either (altered as it is). This is a read that lingers.

As it should.

This one gets a content warning too: Black Leopard, Red Wolf is decidedly not a children’s book. It contains graphic depictions of violence, sex, and rape. 

But the worldbuilding—my god, the worldbuilding. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is an African fantasy set before Europeans intrude, and there’s very little that feels “Western” about the story. The monsters are distinct (roof-walkers who stalk you from the ceiling, lightning vampires whose thralls crave their master’s charged blood, men who mutated themselves into spiders, and many more). The societies function according to different rules. The magic works in intriguing ways.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf also offers an unorthodox mystery to unravel. And while the voice lost me on occasion, there’s a messy genius here I’m glad I engaged with.

As you probably gathered from my notes above, when it comes to reading historical fantasy, I think there are tons of great options. But if you only try one of the books I’m highlighting, make it Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Susanna Clarke’s masterpiece has whimsy for days and is set in one of my favorite eras (Napoleonic Europe). And even when I laid the book down during some of the slower bits, I never doubted I’d pick it back up; Clarke’s stewardship was too amusing, too inventive, and ultimately too trustworthy—I always had faith she was shepherding me to a satisfying conclusion. And she did: in the end, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell proved itself more than worthy of the time it took to read.