Here are 91 books that Key of Light fans have personally recommended if you like
Key of Light.
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I vividly remember the first time a book transported me—it was in Mrs. Paul’s second-grade math class, and I was reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader under the desk. It carried me away to a different world. I’ve been looking for that same magic in every book since, hoping to fall into a picture or open a wardrobe door to another place and time. This list contains a few of my favorites, the stories that have earned permanent spots on my shelves, the ones that get pulled down when I need some enchantment in my life. (And don’t we all need a little magic these days?)
The second in the Dark Is Rising series, the story follows Will Stanton, last of the Old Ones.
On his eleventh birthday, he learns he is a warrior with great power, compelled to take part in the ancient cycle of battle between the Dark and the Light.
Moody, atmospheric, and with a carefully constructed backstory filled with Celtic folklore and the natural world, it’s beautifully written, sophisticated in a way children’s literature rarely is, and has echoed in my mind for years.
On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift-- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.
As the co-authors of The Antiquity Affair, we most love to craft thrilling stories that involve mysteries and puzzles—the twistier, the better! As both a reader and a gamer, Jennifer has always been drawn to stories that combine elements of fiction and gaming, games and books that pull you in and make you a co-adventurer along with the protagonists, an active participant in the plot. Lee grew up devouring choose-your-own-adventure stories (she’d read them several times, purposefully choosing different paths to get a sense of the whole story universe), and the adventures she pens with Jennifer feel like a return to those empowering narratives, the sense that fiction is dynamic, its own type of game.
Two timelines, amazing heroines, a globe-trotting adventure, an ancient powerful chess set sought by goodies and baddies throughout the world for centuries, romance and danger, and self-discovery—it is safe to say this novel was a major influence on our book!
Reading it as a teen, I longed to be brilliant enough to be a player in an international intrigue, but the beauty of books like this is that they make you feel like a participant in your own right. We love a book that sends readers on their own thrilling adventure, and this book fully delivers.
A fantasy novel from the author of A CALCULATED RISK. The secret of the Eight is a puzzle whose solution has challenged the most brilliant minds known to humanity. Catherine Velis is manipulated into using her unrivalled problem-solving skills to find and reassemble to legendary chess set.
As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true?
Anne Bishop weaves European myth and historical witch-hunting into a fantastical tale of Fae, Witches, and those without magic. All three books in this series are unputdownable. So real is the imagery and the variety of characters, each with their own blend of magic and relationship to the natural world, that no matter how dark the tale gets, I can’t stop reading.
Tir Alainn blends the natural, spiritual and physical world of myth into a grassroots world with characters that live and die for what they believe. With a strong moral core to the story, the richness of myth brings the inhabitants of Tir Alainn to life. An enchanting dark fantasy trilogy that is a must-read.
The first novel in New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop's Tir Alainn Trilogy.
The youngest in a long line of witches, Ari senses that things are changing—changing for the worse. For generations, her kin have tended the Old Places, keeping the land safe and fertile. But with the Summer Moon, the mood of her neighbors has soured. And Ari is no longer safe.
The Fae have long ignored what occurs in the mortal world, passing through on their shadowy roads only long enough to amuse themselves. But the roads are slowly disappearing, leaving the Fae Clans isolated and alone.…
As an American widow flush with cash, she has hopes of finding the burning, passionate love she never experienced in her marriage. But instead, she found The Ladies Alpine Society, and is now pressed into planning a fundraising ball with the expedition’s accountant, Leo Moon. Prudence feels out of her depth, but glad to have a partner-in-crime to help her navigate British culture. But the taciturn Mr. Moon doesn’t like her—or does he like her too much?
Prudence Cabot sailed to Europe to find a lover.. As an American widow flush with cash, she has hopes of finding the burning, passionate love she never experienced in her marriage. But instead, she found The Ladies Alpine Society, and is now pressed into planning a fundraising ball with the expedition’s accountant, Leo Moon. Prudence feels out of her depth, but glad to have a partner-in-crime to help her navigate British culture. But the taciturn Mr. Moon doesn’t like her—or does he like her too much?. One look and she saw right through him.. Leo Moon is not his real…
As a Scottish born Australian writer I grew up reading tales from Celtic and Norse mythology and always wanted them to be fact. With a passion for history, including tales of lost civilizations, and with a deeply rooted love of story, I have spent decades exploring how myth and story intertwine. Where do our stories come from? I have fantasized for many hours about what it would be like if there was an older magical world beneath ours. My first novel, The Lost Soul, began when I asked myself one question: What if myth was true?
Raymond E Feist takes a Celtic legend, massages it, and transports it to the new world with such ease that I could really believe the Hill of the Elf King existed in New York state. An earth-based fantasy from an author that has a wonderful knack of making his characters jump off the page, the tale hints at an unseen world. A fantastical world of powerful beings that exists deep below the land.
I love the thought that just below the level of our modern urban world is another world of otherworldly beings where even a simple stroll in nature can take a turn for the worst when we don’t understand the land we are walking on. Throw in an ancient Irish legend and you have the recipe for disaster.
Reissued in spectacular new cover of Feist's chilling dark fantasy
Successful screenwriter Phil Hastings decides to move his family from sunny California to a ramshackle farmhouse in New York State. The idea is to take some time out, relax and pick up the threads of his career as a novelist.
Good plan, bad choice. The place they choose is surrounded by ancient woodland. The house they choose is the centrepoint of a centuries-old evil intent on making its presence felt to intruders.
I am a retired history teacher with 36 years of teaching experience in high school and college. I am also a passionate world traveler and for over four decades led students on overseas tours. In 2012 (the year I retired from teaching) I released my first novel, Widder’s Landing set in Kentucky in the early 1800s. One of my main characters came from a family of Irish Catholics—and he is featured in Rebels Abroad. Ireland has always fascinated me and in my nine trips to the country, I smelled the peat fires, tasted the whiskey, listened to the music and the lyrical tales told by the tour leaders—and came to love the people.
To comprehend the present, one must examine the past and observe the undercurrents that forge a people and their nation.
Rutherfurd’s Rebels of Ireland succeeds brilliantly in this endeavor. The families in this novel deal with the real historical events that shaped Irish destiny. They drew me into their lives and swept me along on a journey through time. When I finally emerged, I felt as if I had witnessed history, and lived it alongside them!
The Princes of Ireland, the first volume of Edward Rutherfurd’s magisterial epic of Irish history, ended with the disastrous Irish revolt of 1534 and the disappearance of the sacred Staff of Saint Patrick. The Rebels of Ireland opens with an Ireland transformed; plantation, the final step in the centuries-long English conquest of Ireland, is the order of the day, and the subjugation of the native Irish Catholic population has begun in earnest.
Edward Rutherfurd brings history to life through the tales of families whose fates rise and fall in each generation: Brothers who must choose between fidelity to their ancient…
I was a teenager when I discovered that my grandfather was an Irish rebel during the War of Independence. As a Canadian, I was astounded by the stories he told me when we were alone during my first visit to Dublin. At 16, I promised him I would write a book about him. Alas, he was long gone when I got started. Researching, I would think of him, whispering anecdotes to me he never told his children. I discovered the stories were much worse than he let on. I could not stop until I got the whole story down on paper. I think he is smiling.
I love that this book is a treasure chest of ancient stories passed down by word of mouth for countless generations. The Irish were originally a separate nation of Celts, with their own set of gods and heroes and warriors, their own idiosyncratic characters like shape-shifters, fairies, and leprechauns. I love that Lady Gregory spent years collecting these stories from the locals on her native West Coast, starting with her own nanny.
What I love most about this book is that it was a best seller when the rebels of 1916 were young and that they were raised on some of these same stories of courage, fortitude and yes, trickery. These wild characters were the role models of young developing Irish rebels at the turn of the century.
Lady Augusta Gregory's Irish Myths and Legends, or Gods and Fighting Men as it was first titled in 1904, is an essential collection of Irish myths, legends and folk tales gathered by Gregory from Irish oral story tellers at the close of the nineteenth century.
These epic tales are divided into two parts: the first charts the coming of the mythic Tuatha De Danaan to Ireland, the lives of Manannan and Lugh, and the tragedy of the Children of Lir. The second part follows the exploits and trials of Finn Mac Cumhal, the Fianna, Oisin, and the love story of…
My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!
This recent and very unique release from University of Wales Press presents a wide range of academic studies about different aspects of Celtic mythology, showcasing what kinds of perspectives and methodologies are being used these days at the cutting edge of the study of Celtic mythology.
It also provides readers and students with an introduction to some important topics, and well-grounded and insightful interpretations, as well as the work and approaches of a wide range of Celticists from a variety of countries.
Some of my favourite mentors and colleagues are in the book, as well as an essay by yours truly about the possible use of entheogens in early Ireland. This is a shorter version of a larger body of research I'm currently editing for publication, but it shows how a knowledge of Old Irish and the wide range of early Irish literature can provide a deep pathway into topics…
This wide-ranging book contains twelve chapters by scholars who explore aspects of the fascinating field of Celtic mythology - from myth and the medieval to comparative mythology, and the new cosmological approach. Examples of the innovative research represented here lead the reader into an exploration of the possible use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Celtic Ireland, to mental mapping in the interpretation of the Irish legend Tain Bo Cuailgne, and to the integration of established perspectives with broader findings now emerging at the Indo-European level and its potential to open up the whole field of mythology in a new way.
I have always loved fairy tales, myths, and fantasy, having developed a vivid imagination during childhood because we lived far from friends. When I began studying French, I discovered a love for medieval legends such as Tristan et Yseult. During trips to France, I explored troglodyte caves of the Loire Valley and prehistoric grottos, such as La Grotte de Lascaux. The more I researched legends and myths, the more my fantasy world of paranormal romance and shapeshifting warriors evolved.
This story is a retelling of a fairy tale of six brothers who transform
into swans due to an evil enchantment. Their sister Sorcha, the Daughter of the
Forest, painfully weaves shirts from starwort nettle to break the spell and
save them. Filled with romance, otherworldly elements of medieval Celtic
legends such as fairy folk and magic spells, this novel is a powerful testament
to love and loyalty.
I have always loved legends and fairy tales and felt totally immersed in this magic world of Marillier’s Celtic forest.
Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum, faces the difficult task of having to save her family from its enemies, who have bewitched her father and six older brothers while forcing her to choose between the life she has always known and a special love.
My passion for Celtic cultures, languages, and traditions comes from my family, where singing and storytelling were common. I worked as a singer and musician, and trained in Celtic Studies through Harvard University. That was an amazing experience, and research in Scotland and Ireland expanded my knowledge tremendously. I taught Celtic literature, mythology, and folklore at numerous colleges, and am Expert Contributor in Iron Age Pagan Celtic Religion for the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, and invited Old Irish translator for the upcoming Global Medieval Sourcebook at Stanford University. I wake up every day excited to share the historical realities of these amazing cultures and beliefs!
This classic and unsurpassed study of iconography and literature pertaining to deities and various types of symbolism found in Celtic myth, I think has often been overlooked by students... as well as by enthusiasts, who inexplicably prefer trying to discern the veracities of topics related to Celtic paganism through online chat rooms, where many posts (including heated arguments and mind-boggling claims and posturing) rarely seem to culminate in any kind of helpful or accurate conclusions. And readers and seekers deserve better!
I would highly recommend that people step away from the phone, and pick up this book! So many of the questions that never seem to get answered on social media are both answered and clarified in this excellent work (which I use myself!). The chapters talk about a variety of gods and goddesses, and mythic themes (with examples from Britain, Ireland, Gaul, and the Continent) including horned gods, the…
Although some aspects of pre-Roman and pre-Christian beliefs remain shrouded in mystery, the author of this comprehensive, profusely illustrated volume contends that neither the Roman invasion of Britain nor the coming of Christianity eliminated pagan religious practice. Dr Anne Ross, who speaks Gaelic and Welsh, writes from wide experience of living in Celtic speaking communities where she has traced vernacular tradition. She employs archaeological and anthropological evidence, as well as folklore, to provide broad insight into the early Celtic world. She begins by examining Celtic places of worship, the shrines and sanctuaries in which sacred objects were housed and from…
I’ve loved nature and being outdoors since childhood, when I would escape our apartment complex by berry-picking in a park or sneaking onto the lush grounds of a local mental hospital. I grew up in Queens, New York, at a time of rapid development, and mourned as trees were felled for housing. I became an avid hiker, canoeist, and gardener as an adult, and serve on the board of an environmental organization in Montauk, Long Island. What we lose when we lose our connection to nature, saving our last wild places, and leaving a sustainable world to the next generation are key themes in my forthcoming novel--and personal motivation.
This marvelous novel allowed me to travel to the remote southwest coast of Ireland, on the Beara peninsula.
The landscape is so evocatively and vividly described that I felt as if I were hiking along with the appealing protagonist, Annie Crowe. Like me, Annie turns to walking and nature when she is depressed or needs thinking time, and boy does Annie have demons to battle! She’s a great character - both tough and fragile, a recovering alcoholic.
On a job assignment as a public relations expert in support of a copper mine, she finds herself thrust into controversy with the local community. It opposes the mine because it would despoil this wild landscape and also endanger the nesting Red-billed Chough. I loved every detail of the walks and the cliffs and the ocean that Johnson describes.
And running throughout is a spicy thread of ancient mythology and Gaelic mysticism, which…
Along the windswept coast of Ireland, a woman discovers the landscape of her own heart
When Annie Crowe travels from Seattle to a small Irish village to promote a new copper mine, her public relations career is hanging in the balance. Struggling to overcome her troubled past and a failing marriage, Annie is eager for a chance to rebuild her life.
Yet when she arrives on the remote Beara Peninsula, Annie learns that the mine would encroach on the nesting ground of an endangered bird, the Red-billed Chough, and many in the community are fiercely protective of this wild place.…
