95 books like Dragon Queen

Although The Scar is the second book in the Bas Lag series, I prefer it to Perdido Street Station (which is also glorious.) The Scar takes to the seas, a place I always prefer to be, in the form of the floating, roving city of Armada.

We come aboard (as it were) and experience life on Armada—its precincts, villages, towns, secrets, and its people—swordsmen and librarians and vampires and the mysterious pair who run the place—The Lovers (that’s the only name we get) through the eyes of Bellis Coldwine, a prickly, difficult, but fascinating woman who would literally rather be anywhere else.

I get where she’s coming from but I would absolutely book a cruise on Armada!

Of Bees and Mist is a mix between fable and fairy-tale. It tells the story of Meridia, whose home is infested with perpetual mist, and her marriage to a young man that puts her in the sights of Eva, her new mother-in-law, who whispers to bees and is quite evil.

The juxtaposition between the two women is what makes this book so fascinating. I love books about family secrets, and the setting of crumbling houses and collapsing dynasties is what drew me into this story, but what kept me reading was the delicious conflict between Meridia and Eva. I had no idea where this story was going to take me, but I loved every second of it.

This is the story of four teenagers and their journey to cope with the anxieties of being a teenager, mixed with recovering from traumatic events. 

It is such an unusual book that it defies explanation. The best thing to do is to pick it up and read it for yourself. I found it confusing in a delightful way – the mixture of reality and dreamscape is captivating and leaves you wondering what is real and what is imaginary.

This book is chaotic and intense and left me feeling a bit dizzy, but I think if I had read it when I was a teenager it would have accurately reflected how I felt and dealt with the world!

Pixel Juice is a collection of short stories, all set in the near future. Some of the stories are linked and have a continuing thread and some are standalone, but all of them are enthralling.

Jeff Noon belongs primarily to the “cyberpunk” subgenre of science fiction, and an ironic prescience runs through these stories in the manner of Dark Mirror, testing your acceptance of the advances of technology, consumer culture, and mass media.

I came away from reading this book the first time feeling quite emotional about how well he evoked the uncanny weirdness we take for granted living in a world dominated by data and screens. 

The second book in The Thief series, The Queen of Attolia is also, IMO, the most romantic.

It starts with a bang, Eugenides of Edis, the thief who can steal anything, is caught spying on the queen of Attolia, the sworn enemy of his own queen. Attolia’s brutal punishment of her rival’s cousin sends Eugenides into a downward spiral of regret and self-loathing.

Yet, when his cunning and skills are the only thing that stands between victory and defeat, Eugenides once more must rise to the call and try to steal the most precious prize of all, the queen’s heart.

An impressive world building, a lovable, if irritating, protagonist, and a most inventive and clever plot make for an unforgettable read.

Was there ever a less heroic leading character than Prince Jalan? Apparently a vain, selfish coward, he would not even be likable if he was not also funny and honest. Well, he is honest some of the time, in his inside voice, even while being a liar to almost everyone else. So, when Jalan gets unwillingly and unwittingly caught up with an enormous Viking to go on a quest to save the world, I had to wonder how this one was going to work out. But it turns out that Jalan may have been lying to himself more than the reader, or himself, even realized, and he may not be quite the coward that he says he is.

This book was one of the first romantic fantasy books I picked up and it completely captivated me from the very first page. You are immediately thrown into an incredible world, right at the same time the two main characters meet. It’s fast-paced, steamy, and perfect for anyone who loves that enemies-to-lovers vibe (me, I’m anyone). Kat and Griffin are amazing together and it’s so much fun to watch them figure that out.

As with the book on Athelstan above, this is the first of England’s queen, and the first of England’s queens for whom we have a historical record that she underwent consecration, for which a monograph currently exists. While the author does draw on much post-conquest material, if not for this book I know I would never have begun to consider the queens, as well as the kings, as subjects that I could write about. It’s not the thickest of books, but it is very well written, again adopting a chronological approach, and readers will feel as though Queen Elfrida, whose Old English name was Ælfthryth, feels far more understandable, as opposed to being lost behind the seemingly impenetrable wall of 1066 and the Norman Conquest. It perhaps helps, that Queen Elfrida had quite a scandalous reputation☺

This is another biography of the current queen that shows how the monarchy works. It differs from Sarah Bradford’s biography. Pimlott was a historical expert on the labour party during the twentieth century. He brought to his book all the skepticism about the crown that people on the political left traditionally have in Britain. Perhaps surprisingly, then, he comes out admiring Elizabeth II. He sticks much more narrowly than Bradford does to political crises in which the queen had some noted or decisive influence.

From the Windsors’ Nazi leanings in the 1930s to the perceived chilliness of the royal family following the death of Diana in 1997, Clive Irving chronicles every detail in this analysis of the modern monarchy – while never losing respect for its most adroit exponent, Queen Elizabeth II. As founder of the renowned Insight team of the London Sunday Times that exposed Profumo and Philby, Irving directs his sharpest focus on the Crown’s relations with the tabloid media. But his book went to publication prior to the horse-loving Queen’s humorous reaction to Harry and Meghan’s notorious 2021 encounter with Oprah Winfrey – Her Majesty named her fastest new racing foal “Interview”.