76 books like Crown Duel

Don’t let the gorgeous cover fool you into thinking this story is all about beauty, though the prose and setting certainly have their share of it. I was captivated by the gray royal court where the Belles control beauty. There are no shortages of dark secrets that put them all at risk in a dangerous political game. Fun details, like miniature teacup pets, are woven seamlessly with the darker aspects of this lush world.

Set in the mid-1400s in France, this series starter contains action, court intrigue, romance, and assassin nuns! I read it years ago and it remains a favorite, not only for the beautiful language, but for the strong heroine, Ismae, and her journey from following the rules and doing as she’s been told, to learning how to discern right from wrong and follow the guidance of her own moral compass. This is a book I would love to watch as a movie, not only for the action, but the costumes.

Experiencing Roshani Chokshi’s prose is like biting into the most satisfyingly decadent piece of cake. This is a story where you can feel the magic seeping through the words.

A Crown of Wishes is the second in a series, but you don’t need to read the first book to understand it. It’s a fairy tale. Gauri is a princess held captive in her own home. She escapes with help from Vikram, the prince of a neighbouring country. He requires her help to win The Tournament of Wishes, where they must use all their wits to survive poison, dangerous magical creatures, and riddles to come through alive.

This book is beautiful and so much fun.  

This book contains everything I love in a novel—deadly magic, mistaken identities, court intrigue, female friendships, and perhaps most importantly, romance! Exiled princess Wilhelmina has a vendetta against the Indigo Kingdom which long ago invaded her homeland and murdered her family. With the help of her best friend, she infiltrates the royal court in disguise and seeks to regain her throne. But obstacles are many—Wil harbors a magical secret that just might get her killed, a masked vigilante won’t leave her alone, and a magical blight is slowly sweeping through the land and destroying everything in its path. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time as I read this captivating book, and when it ended with a cliffhanger I nearly had a heart attack! Fortunately its sequel answered all my questions and more.

As a kid, I loved all kinds of fiction—sci-fi, fantasy, realistic, historical—pretty much anything I could get my hands on! D.J. MacHale’s Pendragon series magically captures the best of every genre. In The Merchant of Death, Bobby Pendragon, a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy, finds himself pulled into an alternate dimension ruled by a magical tyrant. Bobby learns he is a Traveler, someone gifted with the ability to travel between alternate dimensions (called Territories) and his destiny is much bigger than he could ever have imagined. The Merchant of Death is a thrilling start to a captivating YA adventure!

If you’re a fan of reimagined classic fairy tales, you’ll love C. J. Redwine’s Robin Hood-esque take on Snow White (with dragons!)

Unlike the classic Princess Snow White of old, Princess Lorelai is no simpering miss. She’s a powerful magic-wielder with a cause. As Lorelai learns to control and develop her magic, friends (and dragon-shifters!) join the quest to rid her kingdom—and the young shifter king she loves—from its menace: her wicked aunt, who used magic to take over the land.

With some imagery loosely borrowed—and creatively adjusted!—from the classic Snow White story, this new tale features a fresh heroine who doesn’t expect anyone to rescue her kingdom for her. The Shadow Queen is a romantic and epically-reimagined fairy tale with beautiful themes of sacrificial love.

This fascinating, gender-swapped Pinnochio retelling has a few hints of Frankenstein, and is gorgeously written. The main character, Pirouette, begins life as a tree and is carved into a puppet by her father, then brought to life by the magic of the blue moon. When the powerful Margrave of Tavia commissions Pirouette and her father to make one hundred wooden soldiers or risk imprisonment, they have no choice to comply. And then the Margrave makes an additional demand: he wants Pirouette to carve him a life-sized assassin—and then bring it to life. But is she making a monster or a masterpiece? And can she keep her own origins a secret?

When it comes to building a world the readers can get involved in, you have to be careful not to reveal too much in the beginning. You want to captivate your readers, have them invest more and more time into exploring the world, allowing it to open up. The Ropemaker shows how well a fantasy story can be written this way. The distant and frightful empire is shrouded in mystery as Tilja and the others begin their adventure, but said mystery is slowly dismantled as they progress through their journey, coming to understand their enemy by living amongst them, all while seeking out a way to protect their home from invasion. 

Mickey is angry about nearly everything in his life, which makes the ad for the Anti-Book even more tempting. When it comes, it has only one line of instruction: To erase it, write it. He fills the book with everything he dislikes, and soon it begins to change. But is that really what he wants? This is a darkly funny book about life, struggle, and learning to accept change.

Superpowers are a classic allegory for coming of age, and Gifts uses them as such in an especially timeless and effective way. When the children of the Uplands reach adolescence, they develop powerful gifts that can be equal parts useful and dangerous. Most of them start off applying these gifts exactly according to their parents’ instructions. But ultimately, their gifts are their own, and part of accepting them is accepting the responsibility of choosing how to use them. It’s a wonderfully moody, atmospheric exploration of uses and abuses of power.