Here are 83 books that Elizabeth's Legacy fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am an award-winning mystery author of several private detective novels. All of my recommendations have an especially sentimental appeal since they were favorites of my son when he was younger. As we read them together, my mystery novelist sensibility couldn’t help but notice the classic crime story elements in all of these books. Dressed up as middle-grade fantasies, each of these novels uses the structures, tropes, and conventions of the mystery genre to propel its plot forward.
Yes, it’s about elves, centaurs, and gnomes. But it is also very much a mystery. Part police procedural with Capt. Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police, part ransom caper, and part ticking bomb suspense, Artemis Fowl mixes all of these classic crime components with fantasy, scatological humor, and unexpected twists to create a story both original and familiar. Another much-loved selection from the Cavanagh library.
Twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has discovered a world below ground of armed and dangerous--and extremely high-tech--fairies. He kidnaps one of them, Holly Short, and holds her for ransom in an effort to restore his family's fortune. But he may have underestimated the fairies' powers. Is he about to trigger a cross-species war?
Disney's “Artemis Fowl” is directed by Kenneth Branagh and stars Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, Tamara Smart, Nonzo Anozie, with Josh Gad, and Judi Dench.
I have been writing fantasy professionally for more than twenty-five years, and have published novels of epic fantasy, contemporary urban fantasy, supernatural thriller, and (as D.B. Jackson) historical fantasy. I have devoted my professional life to the genre because I love writing about magic and the people who wield it. I believe fantasy novels should thrill and intrigue, but also touch our emotions, and carry us through narratives with beautiful writing. That is what I try to do with my books, and that is what draws me to the novels I have listed here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
Chances are many of you have heard of this one, or at least of its author.
Neverwhereis not Gaiman’s best-known or best-selling book. Not by a long shot on either score. But it is my personal favorite, in part because it is less flashy than his other books, while managing to be just as exciting and suspenseful.
Like all of Gaiman’s work, it is at once humorous and dark, fanciful and brutally believable. Our hero, Richard Mayhew, is hapless but ultimately lovable. Our villains, a pair of killers named Croup and Vandemar, are terrifying.
And the characters we discover in the world below the streets of London, are charming and worth fighting for.
After devouring fantasy novels in my late teens and early twenties, I eventually hit a dead end. Where had all the good old-school fantasy gone? I wanted dashing heroes, compelling love stories, and epic battles between good and evil, but I could not seem to find it anymore–at least not as regularly as I wanted to. Eventually I set about writing my own stories, the kind of stories I always wanted to read. When I’m writing, I always go back to books on this list to rekindle my fire and remind me what good fantasy should be.
From the moment I spied the cover, I knew I had to read this book.
It featured an armored soldier on horseback leading a group of weary travelers on a dark, foreboding night. It whispered of danger and mystery–two things all good fantasy contains. The group, inspired by prophecy, battles against unworldly creatures, eyeless monsters, and enigmatic foes in their quest to defeat the dark one.
I loved the clear delineation between the creator and the dark one and their contrasting visions for the world.
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the Two Rivers seeking their master's enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al'Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light .
I am a 68-year-old Emergency Room Physician who deals with life and death and tremendous stress every hour at work. When I read, I want to relax and be entertained I personally like YA fantasy books. I do not want to read adult fictionized stories about the life I live every day. I want to be taken off to a new world. Emersed in it. And made to believe the unbelievable.
I loved this series because it took a person who was struggling in life and brought them into a new and more deadly world where her struggles became more intense and real. She had to grow, trust herself, and learn how and who to trust in this new world. It was filled with Runes magic and though character driven it had a plot that pulled you along.
Father-daughter relationships have always fascinated me. I wrote my first book to explore what it might be like for a girl to have a father with whom communication is, if not easy, possible. Although my own father was around when I was growing up, he was a distant figure. A mechanical engineer, he lost himself in ruminations on machines and mathematics and was made still more distant by his alcoholism. As a kid, I tried to glean from books what having a “regular” father might be like. I still haven’t figured it out, but I love seeing other authors capture the formative effects of this particular parental relationship.
Haydu is a master at using fantasy as a metaphor for real-life trauma. What I love about One Jar in particular is Haydu’s delicate pacing as Rose, who has always idealized her father, slowly comes to the realization that he’s been manipulating her into believing she’s destined for a special kind of magic and—in an even more devastating betrayal—has made her believe there is only one definition of special. When Rose doesn’t measure up to that definition, she blames herself until the evidence against her father becomes too overwhelming to ignore. It’s a masterful portrait of an abusive parent using divisiveness to keep everyone in their place, and of a young girl rising above her father’s machinations and redefining “special” for herself.
From the critically acclaimed author of Eventown comes a hopeful and empowering tale set in an enchanting world of magic and mysterious family secrets-perfect for fans of Anne Ursu, Rebecca Stead, and Wendy Mass.
Magic is like a dream. Delightful. Terrifying. Unreal.
Rose Alice Anders is Little Luck. Lucky to be born into the Anders family. Lucky to be just as special and magical as the most revered man in town-her father. The whole town has been waiting for Rose to turn twelve, when she can join them in their annual capturing of magic on New Year's Day and become…
All my books (I hope!) sweep the reader into another world – it’s one of my favourite themes in the books I love to read, as well as write. When I was about seven, I first read some of the books which would shape my life, including Elidor by Alan Garner and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle, which brought me right out of my own life and into worlds as varied as the frightening interstellar realm of Camazotz and the battlefields of Elidor. I’ve been trying to capture that sense of ‘being swept away’ in my own work ever since.
Bell’s Uncommoners series is set in a richly-imagined magical world where everyday objects have extraordinary powers – and when darkness closes in, Seb and Ivy Sparrow must race to uncover an Uncommon mystery before it’s too late. Featuring a talking bicycle bell, police officers armed with toilet brushes, and the incredible city of Londinium, these books will fling you straight into a thrilling adventure.
Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems . . .
Dive head first into the world of Lundinor in this magical adventure story for anyone with a Hogwarts-shaped hole in their life.
When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Returning to Sylvie's house, they find it has been ransacked by unknown intruders - before a mysterious feather scratches an ominous message onto the kitchen wall. A very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them . .…
As an engineer for multiple space projects (including the ISS, Gateway, and commercial space), it seems like I should be a strict sci-fi person. But I love sci-fi and fantasy equally, and I love books that break through the wall between them. Especially in space opera, you can play with how much technology and how much magic shaped a world and a culture. Zooming in, that will greatly influence the characters. Some make it esoteric and exclusive, where others make it more common.All of them transport readers to magical, expansive universes.
The great thing about this one is how closely related the magic and technology are—the magic is really used to manipulate technology. For example, Mechanists can tap into the inner workings of machines, while Datamancers can comb through data even better than AI. The book features fantastic action sequences at a breakneck pace, and a lovable rag-tag team thrown-in together to defeat a terrifying villain named Mother.
Furious and fun, the first book in this bold, new science fiction adventure series follows a crew of outcasts as they try to find a legendary ship that just might be the key to savings themselves-and the universe.
Boots Elsworth was a famous treasure hunter in another life, but now she's washed up. She makes her meager living faking salvage legends and selling them to the highest bidder, but this time she got something real--the story of the Harrow, a famous warship, capable of untold destruction.
Nilah Brio is the top driver in the Pan Galactic Racing Federation and the…
Like many people, The Lord of the Ringscaptivated me as a child. I read those books as well as The Hobbit half a dozen times before I was twelve, and a couple of times more since. What’s more, I was lucky enough to be nine when the first movie came out, which only furthered my childhood obsession. Though I’m less enthralled by the series now, the classic quest it represents still has a place in my heart. I’ve tried to reproduce the grandeur and adventure of that story in my writing, and I’ve found a good portion of it in the books I recommend below. May they take you on captivating new journeys!
Quest is in the name, and does it ever live up to it! As the culmination of The Farseer Trilogy, it does the previous books justice. The journey is arduous, full of twists and turns, and the reader feels every wound Fitz suffers. Yet as in every good quest, in the end, he achieves what he aims to do – though not in the way he expects, and at an unimaginable cost. This is Hobb at her finest, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
'Fantasy as it ought to be written' George R.R. Martin
The gripping finale to Robin Hobb's classic Farseer Trilogy.
With the king no longer living and the heir, Verity, missing and declared dead, Prince Regal has treacherously seized the throne.
Regal's torture has left Fitz more dead than alive, and more closely than ever bonded with his wolf. All who once loved him believe him dead: even Molly, now pregnant with his child. But he cannot go to her without placing her in terrible danger.
With nothing to lose, Fitz sets out for Tradeford, where Regal has withdrawn, having heartlessly…
I was talking to some scientifically minded people online when I came across quantum physics. When I read that there’s something scientists call the Quantum Realm, I knew I had to write a book. I took the information a German scientist who specialized in quantum theory gave me and created a science fantasy world. I have a masters in English and a bachelor's in communication. Two of the most important questions a fiction author can ask are What if? and Why not? Instead of having a regular guy fall into a magic world, I had the magician’s apprentice fall into a world of science just to see what he’d do.
The elves in this small English town have to blend in with their human neighbors. And a good job of it they do, too. I like the tenacity of Rosie Foxx. Her brother insists that she marry a human, and going along to get along seems the best course of action. But her elven heritage will not be denied. In a way, she is like the positrons in queen of the Quantum Realm—outcasts as they are, they think it better to be transformed into something they are not. this is very human.
Winner of the 2009 Romantic Times Award for BEST FANTASY NOVEL
“Even the most jaded fantasy reader will quickly fall under the spell of her characters and the warm, intimate voice Warrington uses to tell their stories. Highly recommended.” —Charles de Lint, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Rosie Fox is a daughter of Aetherials, an ancient race from the Spiral—the innermost realm of the Otherworld—who live secretly among us. Yet she and her kind are bereft of their origins, because on Earth, in a beautiful village named Cloudcroft, the Great Gates between worlds stand sealed.
While I love a good romance, I was disappointed to discover how few novels are written about friendship. In so many books, friends take a backseat to the love interest, or to the plot; it’s hard, outside of fiction aimed at children, to find stories that treat friendship as pivotal to a character’s life as friendship usually is in normal life. I love stories that show us what that kind of friendship looks like, and how it can matter… which is why I write them.
Harrier, son of a harbormaster, and Tiercel, nobleman’s son, make for exactly the kind of friendship you often see in real life, where one of the pair’s a dreamer and the other a pragmatist, and they need one another for balance. Their friendship remains central to all three books of this series, keeping them sane as they take on an impossible world-saving task.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory teamed up to write The Obsidian Trilogy, set in a wondrous world filled with magical beings, competing magic systems, and a titanic struggle between good and evil.
That world proved so popular with the creators and readers alike that Lackey and Mallory have returned to it with The Phoenix Unchained, Book One of The Enduring Flame, the opening volume of a new epic fantasy trilogy. After a thousand years of peace, much Magick has faded from the world. The Elves live far from humankind. There are no…
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