Here are 100 books that Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time fans have personally recommended if you like
Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time.
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I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.
A touch of romance, quite a bit of magic, and a whole lot of snark! Ashira Cohen is scarred emotionally and physically but it doesn’t stop her indomitable spirit. When her magical powers come on her suddenly, she doesn’t miss a beat as she figures her way around the unknown supernatural worlds. I laughed out loud reading this one!
"This giddy, sexy series launch is a delight.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review) Featuring an enemies-to-lovers romance and a smart female P.I., this hilarious paranormal mystery will keep you up all night.
Missing teens. Long-lost magic. And the sexy nemesis who might drive her to murder.
Detective for hire, Ashira Cohen is having a no-good, very bad day.
When Ash was thirteen, her con artist father disappeared, leaving her with emotional scars and a limp she can't hide. But she toughened up, determined never to be played again. Is history repeating itself?
When I first visited Scotland, I drove north from Edinburgh, driving through much of the country to catch a ferry to Orkney. This northern archipelago is certainly one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to; the steep sea cliffs and standing stones, windblown grasses, and violent waves put me in a gothic state of mind. I moved to Scotland a few years later to live by the sea. Since that first visit to Orkney, I’ve written my own Scottish gothic novels, as well as presented research on the gothic at various academic conferences. It’s a topic that I’m certain will compel me for a long time to come.
This book is such an usual book, and I love it for how strange and unexpected it is.
The story takes place in a near-future Edinburgh, where the world has dramatically changed due to an undefined apocalyptic event but has more of a gothic sensibility than a post-apocalyptic one.
There’s magic, history, and an extremely likable narrator wrapped in an almost-crime-novel package.
"An absolute delight . . . kept me totally hooked." – Genevieve Cogman, bestselling author of The Invisible Library
Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things in T. L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead, a sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh.
WHEN GHOSTS TALK SHE WILL LISTEN
Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left…
I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.
A book by Charlotte English – what more needs to be said? You know it’s going to be an unputdownable, funny journey. Gussie thinks she’s the ‘normal’ one in the family, until her magical gift asserts itself. Spiky and unsociable in nature, Gussie finds her ‘wyrde’, and then begins to view herself in a new light. With this new confidence, she sets out to save her world.
‘If you had not already realised it, this is a very strange house you are come to.’
The Scions of the House of Werth are all born normal. It is what happens afterwards that sets them apart.
It is not easy being the most supernatural family in England. Nell talks to the dead; Lord Werth is too often to be found out in the churchyard at the dead of night; and the less said about Lord Bedgberry, the better.
Only Miss Gussie Werth has missed out on the family curse. She sups on chocolate, not blood; she's blissfully oblivious to…
Killion is born several generations after the establishment of the Cities of Light which now sprinkle each continent of the world, places where God’s spirit produces a tangible presence felt by all who enter. Yet he is raised outside these cities, under the direction of Adar, who teaches his followers…
I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.
Nya is the town outcast and an underdog, a figure of ridicule for many. Yet when she realizes the mysterious life-giving plants the Witterkin are being harmed, she braves the world beyond in order to heal them, and in doing so, finds her own talents. I hated to see this eerie story end. Do you, like me, remember how you felt after reading Madeleine L’Engle as a child? This book brought me back to that absolute rapt sense of wonder.
"Lots of talent here." —best-selling author D. Fischer
The mysterious plant-like beings known as Witterkin have been attacked and begin a viral spread, destroying everything they touch. Nya, a wise woman, and Yaro, the town Windsinger, try to heal the damage and halt the spread. However, something goes awry and they both slip sideways into another world. Nya emerges alone, greeted only by Yaro’s ghostly windsinging. During her dangerous search for him she must combat the will of powerful figures who wish to hold him for their own ends. But rescuing the man she loves won’t solve the bigger problem.…
I grew up in a house of books and storytelling, often reading books beyond my full comprehension, yet absorbing their essence, enjoying the narrative. I place my trust in authors to lead me through a narrative (without every detail spelled out, my imagination free to explore). I want my readers to bring themselves on the journey, allow their narratives to become part of mine. I've always had a sense that things may not always be what they appear, even seemingly ordinary people have secrets and powers that we know nothing of as we pass them on the street, places and objects hold memories and there is no solid explanation for that!
I read this book as a teenager, and it was the writing rather than the story itself which made a huge impression on me. It made me feel afraid in parts, not because the book is a scary story, but the location is so real, I can feel the presence of spirits in the paths that Rachell walks! The island itself is as much a character as Rachell, the kick-ass heroine. It is about pain and loss and love and passion and, magic.
Amidst the beauty of the Channel Islands in 1888, Rachell and Andre du Frocq and their five rambunctious children struggle to keep their rundown farm. Their hope is revived when they take in Ranulph, a shipwreck survivor. Is he an answer to prayer? A heartwarming story of commitment, perseverance, and family devotion!
For me, games have always been a way of playing mathematics. Every game has a hidden piece of mathematics behind it, and if you can understand that mathematics, I’ve found that it gives you a real edge in playing the game. I travel a lot for my work as a mathematician, and I love to ask about the games they play when I visit a new country. Games tell me a lot about the culture and people I am visiting. My book is my way of sharing my passion for games and mathematics with my readers.
This book is Hogwarts meets The Glass Bead Game meets The Handmaid's Tale. I was recommended it when I talked about my games book at a local bookshop. I must admit that I was initially very nervous about a book riffing on one of my favorite books of all time (The Glass Bead Game), but I really enjoyed it.
It is set in a school that trains students to play the game against a political backdrop that Margaret Atwood could easily have conjured up. It helped to give another perspective on Hesse’s fictional game that, as I said in my first recommendation, I’ve been obsessed with ever since reading about it as a student.
'BEAUTIFUL' JOANNA CANNON
'MESMERISING' ERIN KELLY
'TOTALLY ADDICTIVE' JOANNA GLEN
'SUMPTUOUS' OBSERVER
'DIZZYINGLY WONDERFUL' THE TIMES
WINNING WAS EVERYTHING...
UNTIL IT DESTROYED THEM
Two young men, Leo and Carfax, close friends and fierce rivals. A family ripped apart by madness and tragedy. One woman, her life built upon a lie, with a mysterious connection to them all...
'INGENIOUS' GUARDIAN
'A STORYTELLER OF RARE IMAGINATION' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'BRILLIANT' WOMAN & HOME
'A RICH DELIGHT' SANDRA NEWMAN
'CAPTIVATING' DAILY MIRROR
'AN IMMERSIVE, IMAGINATIVE SLICE OF STORYTELLING' DAILY EXPRESS
'MAGICAL' IRISH INDEPENDENT
My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.
It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to…
I read almost any genre, but fantasy is what I love most, both reading and writing. Stories are magic, but when they have actual magic in them, I’m hooked. Having studied both Film and Creative Writing at university, I love to go in-depth on storytelling and have reviews aplenty on my website if you want further recommendations. The books I’ve chosen for this list have incredibly unique worlds full of bizarre magic. When I enter a new world, I want it to be exactly that: new and exciting with a touch of the surreal. To me, these books showcase magic at its most vivid and creative.
I very nearly stopped reading this book–even though it’s so short as it starts off unbelievably abstract. I didn’t know what was going on, and the descriptions only added to the confusion. But I’m so glad I kept going.
The main character does amnesia in the most charming way, and discovering his past and the strange world he seems both lost in and totally at home in was absolutely enchanting. This has stuck with me ever since, like the most vivid fever dream.
Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.
In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend,…
Science fiction and Fantasy have always been about exploring new ideas in novel ways—right from the beginning, Mary Shelley saw the story of Frankenstein as a chance to explore ideas of liberation and equality that, at the time, were too uncomfortable for mainstream stories. Since then many writers have found success by mashing up sf with other literary genres to discover the boundaries—and the gray areas—between them. In my latest book I explore the deep connection between horror (the fear of the unknown) and sf (the drive toward wonder). Some of my most cherished books have similarly charted these murky borderlands.
I love this book for its science fiction and magical realism. This generational saga of a small town on a recently terraformed Mars is both a love letter to and an evolution on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’sOne Hundred Years of Solitude.
McDonald wanted to capture the frontier magic of a whole new world in a way that wasn’t just moving the American West to space, and in the end he breathes new life into one of the oldest tropes of SF, the colony story.
Charming, fantastical, and witty, it shares its source material’s deep humanism even in the face of cynical realism. It may very well be my favorite novel of all time, and luckily for all of us, there’s an equally great sort of sequel, Ares Express.
It all started thirty years ago on Mars. By the time it was finished, the town of Desolation Road had been witness to every abnormality yet seen on the Red Planet. From Adam Black's Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza, to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar, nowhere else boasts such sights for the wandering lucky traveller.
Its inhabitants are just as storied. From Dr. Alimantando -- founder and resident genius -- to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother with a child grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo whose way with machines bordered on the mystic, to the…
I began reading science fiction when I was 8 years old and "borrowed" my father’s library books until, in defense, he got me my own library card. Not only have I spent decades reading SF, I’ve written it as well. As a veteran reader and writer with plenty of kill marks on my fuselage, I'm literally married to the SF mob (Grandmaster Robert Silverberg, is my spouse). I can both walk the walk and talk the talk. And after writing 9 SF novels including a Star Trek Book and reading uncounted SF and F tales, I still think science fiction and fantasy can be a literature of ideas illuminating the human condition.
The title story of this brilliant collection is a very funny alien invasion story told from the point of view of a woman who is convinced that the invasion is all about her. The other stories are similarly quirky and delightful.
The late Carol Emshwiller was a groundbreaking visionary writer who began publishing her funny, intriguing, unusual work after she was 30 and had to pry writing time away from the demands of her growing family.
When necessary, she would empty out the playpen in her living room, get into it with her typewriter, and work on her fiction while her preschool children enjoyed the freedom of the apartment. She was known for avant-garde approach, unreliable narrators, quirky humor, and a liberal, feminist outlook.
Recipient of the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick Award. The late Ursula K. LeGuin called her "a major fabulist, a marvelous magical realist, one of…
From an early age, I have been fascinated with anything supernatural and occult. My Aunt would read my palm, and then, as a teenager, I would visit clairvoyants to see what the future held for me. As I grew older, I found I had an ability, a gift of seership, and after reading many books, embarked on my pagan journey, from which I have never looked back, and am now studying Druidry,which is very much nature-based. I hope you love the books on this list as much as I do!
This was another of my lockdown reads, and again, I became completely immersed in the story from the word go. There are some incredibly dark moments, which, however, balance beautifully with many heartfelt moments. It was most definitely an emotion-inducing story for me.
I loved the fast pace and the author's ability to keep me literally on the edge of my seat, mustering all kinds of feelings, from frustration and anger to great joy. I found the characters strong, and the magic thought-provoking, and this was another story that I was so sad to say goodbye to.
My ex-lover is a psychopath, hunting me down for revenge. I am falling in love with his enemy. And I am the last Arcane Witch left alive, destined to return magic to the modern world.
My whole life, I have been a prisoner. Starved. Beaten. Hated. By my own family! But most of all, I am feared. I am feared because I am the most powerful woman in the world. Most want me dead. Some want to control my magic for their own, dark desires.
