Here are 99 books that Dawn of Assassins fans have personally recommended if you like
Dawn of Assassins.
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I've been reading Horror and Dark Fantasy books since I was twelve and prefer this genre over any other. The depths of the human psyche explored in these genres expose the core of storytelling itself and the themes that make the best stories really come alive!
For Fantasy readers who wonder why goblins are always at war with humans.
The three books together are epic in scale and the friendship between the leader of the humans and one of the old wise ones among the goblins will be awesome for Dark Fantasy readers who recognize that goblin culture is very different from humans.
Some recognizable mythology is worked into the story and makes perfect sense, especially the purpose of changelings. Also there are dragons, especially in the second book. A strange symbiotic relationship between dragons and goblins is very original and the diversity of different types of goblins makes this Fantasy world one of a kind!
The cult Fantasy book that started it all!Discover a dark world where legends begin and natural magic reignsThey say that the earth shifts on its axis every 200,000 years...When the planet shifted, most of the surface dwellers were destroyed. The few pockets of survivors were left without technology and little supplies, but they built a simple feudal society on the rubble of the city.Meanwhile the creatures in the deep places moved closer to the surface, taking over the old underground transport tunnels abandoned by the humans. Their own Shamanic way of life had survived only by staying out of sight…
Some men need killing. Whether monsters, serial killers, or husbands, women often face off with danger and must put a stop to it. How they do that fascinates me as a former psychotherapist. Must her life be in imminent danger, his finger depressing the trigger, for her to shoot? What if he terrorized or stalked her, but at the moment of death, she sneaks up on him? What if this guy killed her family, and she seeks revenge? Where we draw these lines in fiction informs who we are as humans and the very nature of our souls. And each of the books on my list, prism-like, reveals a separate facet.
I’m ending with this unorthodox double feature (think Godzilla v. Kong) because girls who kill put a twist on the theme of this list. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice. But maybe they’re a little less nice when boys are boys.
A feminist reimagining of March’s classic 1950s novel has Claude Daigle perhaps deserving of his fate at Rhoda Penmark’s hands. What if he tormented and taunted her, and she took revenge? While the daughter in Stage’s contemporary novel walks a very narrow line that kept me unsure the whole time… the guessing was delicious. Is Hanna evil? Or misunderstood? Is her mom, Suzette, going to get her due? Or is she going insane?
The bestselling novel that inspired Mervyn LeRoy’s classic horror film about the little girl who can get away with anything—even murder.
There’s something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she’s the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?
Originally published in 1954, William March’s final novel was an instant bestseller and National Book Award finalist before it was adapted for the stage and made into a…
I've been reading Horror and Dark Fantasy books since I was twelve and prefer this genre over any other. The depths of the human psyche explored in these genres expose the core of storytelling itself and the themes that make the best stories really come alive!
For people who like traditional scary werewolves and a well written, believable community structure and strong plot and characters, this one is top of the class. There are characters to love, characters to hate and no punches pulled on who might get slaughtered.
The best part is that you still want to see the werewolves win.
When John Simpson hears of a bizarre animal attack in his old hometown of High Moor, it stirs memories of a long-forgotten horror. John knows the truth. A werewolf stalks the town once more, and on the night of the next full moon, the killing will begin again. He should know. He survived a werewolf attack in 1986, during the worst year of his life.
However, the consequences of his actions, the reappearance of an old flame and a dying man who will save or damn him are the least of his problems. The night of the full moon is…
I've been reading Horror and Dark Fantasy books since I was twelve and prefer this genre over any other. The depths of the human psyche explored in these genres expose the core of storytelling itself and the themes that make the best stories really come alive!
This Dark Fantasy story about gods of the sea interacting with souls of the dead has everything a good sea monster story has to offer and more.
A ship captain, who is also a god, tries to rescue the souls of drowned sailors before his sister sends her creatures to eat them, losing their souls to the world forever.
In the Outer Islands, gods and magic rule the ocean.
Under the command of Captain Rafe Morrow, the crew of the Celestial Jewel ferry souls to the After World and defend the seas from monsters. Rafe has dedicated his life to protecting the lost, but the tides have shifted and times have changed. His sister, the Goddess of the Moon, is on a rampage and her creatures are terrorizing the islands. The survival of the living and dead hinge on the courage and cunning of a beleaguered captain and his motley crew of men and ghosts. What he doesn't know…
I absolutely love reading representations of strong, powerful women. And while it’s always fun if they’re kick-ass warriors who can take down an army all on their own, strength doesn’t always have to be in combat. Depictions of emotional strength, resilience, and/or compassion can be wonderful elements of strength too. But don’t discount the ‘grey’ women protagonists, either, the mercenary, callous, and/or ruthless characters with only a touch of softness. All these nuances make female characters strong and I love to see any and all of them in my fantasy protagonists. It's why I write so many of them!
I have an absolute favourite book character and her name is Manon Blackbeak.
No, she’s not the main protagonist in this book (although Aelin Galathynius is awesome), and that’s why I’m recommending the fourth book in this series rather than the first, because it’s really where we start to Manon come into her own. She is vicious, unapologetic, fiercely loyal, and just so cool. Yet for someone so hard and tough, her bond with her wyvern, Abraxos, gives you all the feels. I loved how Manon’s plotline developed further in Queen of Shadows and her showdown fight with Aelin at the end was one of the best I’ve ever read.
This is a fantastic series by Maas, with a trove of great characters. My experience was that book three – Heir of Fire – was where the story really began to find its footing. By halfway through…
Sarah J. Maas's New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series reaches new heights in this sweeping fourth volume.
Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire-for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past...
She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.
She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable…
I’ve adored reading a good snarky first-person story since I first read Bloodlist, so long as the snark doesn’t go too far and become total unlikeable jerk… It can be a fine line!I hope I stay on the right side of it, but having read it enough and written in it for years with my Blood Rights Series, I feel qualified to say I’m a…snark connoisseur. (If you ask my family, this is how my own internal/life narrator speaks! My mother says that my character Dakota is me if I “said everything aloud that I think in my head.” She’s probably right, and I’m okay with that.)
Gotta love a hero/antihero with a great wit and a fast mouth. Most Wanted is the first book in a sci-fi series that may remind you a bit of Firefly, and I don’t use that comparison lightly. The narrator’s wit definitely puts this book on this list, but “that’s us, out here on the raggedy edge” is the soul of the book that makes the series for me. Not the best, not the brightest, not the richest or strongest, but a group doing what they can to get by and be there for each other. Maybe accidentally right some wrongs along the way.
They’ve plundered their way across the galaxy and just found the score of a lifetime.
All they have to do is steal from the most ruthless crime lord in the galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?
Yan and his band of rogues are intent on plundering their way to fame and fortune. When they stumble across the score of a lifetime, they quickly go all in for one last job. With everything on the line, there’s no way they can fail. At least that’s what they’re hoping. In the end, they just might have gotten into something bigger than they…
I’ve been a huge fan of D&D and RPG games since I’ve been old enough to play them. The idea of grooming a character, growing it in terms of strength and levels until it becomes powerful enough to take on gods always captured my imagination. LitRPG is a relatively new book genre, and reading it (the good ones at least) makes you feel like you’re playing those games yourselves. Following a new protagonist growth and journey, often illustrated by actual numeric values you can easily keep track of (like skills and levels) is so much fun, and I think more people should be aware it exists.
This is a great, innovative new type of storytelling – that from the side of a monster protagonist. He’s more than just an antihero, he’s a certified, evil, people eating, gold grabbing, demon rising monstrosity – that you can’t help but route for. Prepare for having the meaning of the words ‘shinny’ and ‘tasty’ change forever in your eyes. This is a very different type of story told from the perspective of a greedy, evil, man-eating monster, and you can't help cheer for him along the way. Boxy is the funniest, most uncomplicated-complex character I've ever read, and as he meanders through life, causing a cataclysm event in his wake – all he really wants is shiny and tasty things.
Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. Men covet them. Women envy them. But one fact holds true - everyone wants to get their hands on some big ones.
The same holds true for one intrepid adventurer - a strapping young lad by the name of Himmel. Armed with his grandfather’s trusty longsword and the dream of being the strongest, he sets out on the journey of a lifetime! It is sure to be a long and dangerous road, fraught with danger! And it all starts with a simple test - reach Level 5 in…
I’m Tasmanian. I’ve loved books set in other worlds since I encountered Robert Heinlein’s juveniles in my teens. I often find books set in the mundane world of here-and-now implausible or dull, because the adventures seem contrived or else result from characters doing something stupid or bad. If characters venture to other worlds, or other planets though—that’s a different ballgame! I read a great deal of fantasy and sci-fi, and when I was fourteen, I started writing my own. I enjoy a wide variety of genres, but my favourite stories are those where I can follow relatable characters through wild adventures and believe every line.
I picked up a copy of Sally Rogers-Davidson’s book Polymer in a bookshop in Glebe. I admit I took it from the shelf because of the chance resemblance between our names. It entertained me royally on a long bus ride and I instantly wanted to write to the author. I later met Sally R-D and found we had more in common than our names and our penchant for writing science fiction.
Polymer is one of the most wonderful lively, romantic, adventurous space operas I’ve ever read. It’s sharply written, and Polly Meridian herself is a heroine I wish I’d invented. Her hero is an antihero at first, but the story persuades the reader to give him a chance, as Polly does.
Polymer never wanted to get involved in an intergalactic war. Nor did she ever expect to fall for a member of the enemy forces. But when her idyllic existence on Delta Station is shattered by the invading Gloman Empire, Polymer discovers that there is more to life than long, hot baths. Torn from the only home she has ever known, Polymer is forced to re-evaluate her own beliefs and convictions as she joins the battle against the seemingly unstoppable Glomans. Hunted across the galaxy by a ruthless suitor, Polymer finds herself at the centre of a terrible conspiracy and has…
I’ve had a thing for antiheroes since my early days that were dominated by stereotypical “true-blue” protagonists in straightforward “good versus evil” narratives. Comic books, novels, and television shows were stunted by this unrealistic division that was intended to shelter the reader from provocative ideas and philosophies in favor of presenting a stable worldview. This distortion was most obvious in entertainment intended for young Canadian minds, so it wasn’t until I was old enough to make my own library selections and book purchases that I began to seek out the dark characters populating the gray area that is fiction and life. This ongoing exploration is reflected in my books.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever is a fantastic tale of two worlds. There is the Land, a mystical place of good versus evil, with inhabitants who use supernatural means to summon help against the darkness, and our world where the writer Thomas Covenant lives as an outcast to keep his leprosy in remission and to avoid his hostile neighbors. When he is magically transported to the Land and its people beg him to fight the evil for them, he refuses, believing it is a suicidal delusion that will reactivate his disease and kill him. The troubled hero Covenant could not be more compelling, or his dilemma better written, especially as the true-blue inhabitants of the Land struggle to understand why he can’t do the right thing.
I’m a writer of all genres that’s found a lot of love, particularly in fantasy and thrillers. My love for epic fantasies first began when I was young, and like all young readers, was introduced to Harry Potter and the Magic Tree House series. The idea of being whisked away to a magical world captivated me, and so, I started to create my own stories to keep that magic alive.
In Grey, Gabrian doesn’t believe in magic. She’s a psychologist, and proud to be one. She bases her life on logic, but when things start to happen that she can’t explain, she finds herself in a whirlwind of magic. The way that Gabrian slowly comes to the truth is probably my favorite part of this book. As a Borrower, she’s considered not just a magical being, but a dangerous one. At first, she doesn’t handle this well and takes on the role of an anti-hero, nearly villain which was an interesting way to not only build Gabrian’s character but to introduce the truth of the magical world as well.
And skeletons—all dressed in their finest secrets—will come out to dance.
Raised in urban downtown New York, Gabrian holds no grand illusions of how life really works. And legends of magic and vampires, nothing more than a bunch of hocus pocus stuffed within book pages or painted on the big screen.
But when a woman, no one else can see, enters her office and delivers a riddle filled warning about her intended fate, Gabrian's grip on sanity takes a big hit—terrified she is falling into madness.
