Here are 79 books that The Copernicus Legacy fans have personally recommended if you like
The Copernicus Legacy.
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Maurice Sendak said, "Children do live in fantasy and reality, they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do." In other words, children do the impossible. Growing up, stories where the real and imagined collided were like fresh air when I felt like I couldn't breathe. They've always been important to me, and for many reasons, hold a special place in our literature. Now, as a full-time teacher, writer, and daddy, I get to be on the other side of that joy equation, guiding new readers and writers as they become travelers of the fantastic.
This book is brain candy. Rick’s writing style immediately pulled me into the story. First-person is hard to do right without going overboard, but Rick set the perfect balance of action and internal voice. It also helps that the relationship between Percy’s stepfather and mine was as close to identical as a fantasy novel can get.
And while I know it’s not the first to do it, this was the first middle-grade book I read where the main character was neurodivergent and dealing with a lot of the same issues that I did and that many of my students do as well.
The Lightning Thief: the First book in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series.
The first bestselling book in Rick Riordan's phenomenally successful Percy Jackson series.
Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked to be the son of a Greek God. I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, skateboarding. The usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. That's when things started really going wrong. Now I spend my time fighting with swords, battling monsters with my friends, and generally trying to stay alive.
As a doctor, writer, and mother of middle schoolers, I was ready to scintillate the sixth-graders when I volunteered for the chicken wing dissection class, demonstrating the exciting connection between muscles, tendons, and bones. I opened and closed the wing, placed it in their hands, and showed them the thin strips of tissue coordinating all the action. Did I see fascination? Excitement? Feigned interest of any sort? Sadly, no. They were much more enthusiastic about a different topic I volunteered for. Mythology. Greek gods. Beasts with multiple heads. They knew everything, and I knew books like Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief series were the reason. Books can entertain and educate.
Set in 1920s New York City, the story follows a girl with a hidden gift: the ability to read objects. She chooses to use her power for good and helps to solve a series of murders.
The setting is a character, and we learn all about the seamy side of Roaring Twenties New York, the fun and the feared.
It's 1920s New York City. It's flappers and Follies, jazz and gin. It's after the war but before the depression. And for certain group of bright young things it's the opportunity to party like never before.
For Evie O'Neill, it's escape. She's never fit in in small town Ohio and when she causes yet another scandal, she's shipped off to stay with an uncle in the big city. But far from being exile, this is exactly what she's always wanted: the chance to show how thoroughly modern and incredibly daring she can be.
As a doctor, writer, and mother of middle schoolers, I was ready to scintillate the sixth-graders when I volunteered for the chicken wing dissection class, demonstrating the exciting connection between muscles, tendons, and bones. I opened and closed the wing, placed it in their hands, and showed them the thin strips of tissue coordinating all the action. Did I see fascination? Excitement? Feigned interest of any sort? Sadly, no. They were much more enthusiastic about a different topic I volunteered for. Mythology. Greek gods. Beasts with multiple heads. They knew everything, and I knew books like Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief series were the reason. Books can entertain and educate.
Another great series from Rick Riordan. Set somewhat in the real world, a brother and a sister who don’t look alike discover they are descended from long line of a family of both Egyptian pharaohs and magicians. They have special talents to battle gods from Egyptian mythology and must save their father and the world.
Again, so much history and mythology packed into an exciting adventure story. Our whole family loved it.
The Red Pyramid: the first book in Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles.
Percy Jackson fought Greek Gods. Now the Gods of Egypt are waking in the modern world...
'I GUESS IT STARTED THE NIGHT OUR DAD BLEW UP THE BRITISH MUSEUM . . .'
CARTER AND SADIE KANE'S dad is a brilliant Egyptologist with a secret plan that goes horribly wrong. An explosion shatters the ancient Rosetta stone and unleashes Set, the evil god of chaos . . .
Set imprisons Dr Kane in a golden coffin and Carter and Sadie must run for their lives. To save their dad,…
Twelve-year-old supernatural sleuth Dotty Morgan becomes embroiled in an ancient conflict between rival Japanese factions, and the timing couldn't be worse. A new girl in town creates jealousy between Dotty and her girlfriend, and her mother invites a nightmare houseguest to stay with them. She must put the drama aside…
As a doctor, writer, and mother of middle schoolers, I was ready to scintillate the sixth-graders when I volunteered for the chicken wing dissection class, demonstrating the exciting connection between muscles, tendons, and bones. I opened and closed the wing, placed it in their hands, and showed them the thin strips of tissue coordinating all the action. Did I see fascination? Excitement? Feigned interest of any sort? Sadly, no. They were much more enthusiastic about a different topic I volunteered for. Mythology. Greek gods. Beasts with multiple heads. They knew everything, and I knew books like Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief series were the reason. Books can entertain and educate.
A short and quick read set in the real world, this book pits a belief in science against an unexplainable supernatural element. We learn about photography and 1870s New York City while getting lost in a haunting ghost story.
Unlike many fantasies, this main character, Horace, fights a long time before he gives in to the possibility of a spirit realm. I enjoyed his battle with himself as he reasoned through it.
Newbery Medalist Avi weaves one of his most suspenseful and scary tales-about a ghost who has to be seen to be believed and must be kept from carrying out a horrifying revenge.
The time is 1872. The place is New York City. Horace Carpetine has been raised to believe in science and rationality. So as apprentice to Enoch Middleditch, a society photographer, he thinks of his trade as a scientific art. But when wealthy society matron Mrs. Frederick Von Macht orders a photographic portrait, strange things begin to happen.
Horace's first real photographs reveal a frightful likeness: it's the image…
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.
Whether this book should be taken as a polemic against feminism or support of feminism at its most radical—i.e., women may not always get it right in their fiercest battles, and that’s okay—is probably in the eye of the beholder-slash-reader.
But it doesn’t matter which side I’m on (cough, the second one) in terms of what this book means to me. Which is that adolescence is a tumultuous time when we all get to learn who we are and what matters most to us—if we’re lucky. If we’re less lucky, someone may come along and take advantage of our fresh, unfolding minds such that we never get a chance to bloom.
The girls at Modesta High School feel like they're stuck in some anti-feminist time warp-they're faced with sexism at every turn, and they've had enough. Sponsored by their new art teacher, Ms. Stark, they band together to form the Daughters of Eve. It's more than a school club-it's a secret society, a sisterhood. At first, it seems like they are actually changing the way guys at school treat them. But Ms. Stark urges them to take more vindictive action, and it starts to feel more like revenge-brutal revenge. Blinded by their oath of loyalty, the Daughters of Eve become instruments…
I’m not sure where my love of thrillers in dark settings originated. I’ve always loved mysteries – starting out with Nancy Drew as a kid and then graduating to more mature material as I got older – and a setting that feels like a character in itself is fascinating to me. My love of the dark, moody element has developed as I’ve gotten older – I spent my twenties reading a lot of chick lit and upbeat fiction, but something has shifted in the last decade or so that caused me to embrace the darkness a bit more.
Ninth House is a bit of a departure from my normal choice of genre. This is a fantasy novel, but it takes place at Yale.
Focusing on the well-known “secret” societies that have been an institution at Yale for generations, Bardugo asks the question, what if there was more to these groups than just influence? What if they actually trafficked in black magic? Narrated by Galaxy (Alex) Stern, we see the school through the eyes of an outsider - Alex, a high school dropout, who was recruited by Yale because she has a very special gift.
The way Bardugo writes, you can feel the cold, gray winter of New Haven as though you are living it. No spoilers, but if you haven’t read this novel because it falls into the fantasy genre, read it immediately.
*The adult debut from the author of SHADOW AND BONE - now a Netflix Original series!*
The instant SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestseller that Stephen King calls 'Impossible to put down'.
Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime, Alex was hoping for a fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch.
Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies - well-known haunts of the…
Worcester Glendenis is a 12-year-old wannabe private detective. He models himself on his hero, the fictional private eye Philip Marlowe, of course without the booze, cigarettes, and violence. After all, he is only twelve.
He's a likable and smart kid with two pesky 7-year-old twin sisters, and a Mum and…
When I read, I’m not just seeing the words on a page; I’m escaping into the world crafted by the author. Since I was a child, I’ve always been a lover of fantasy – it was an escape for me to slip between the pages and be a part of the world inside them. Especially if they were beautiful and filled with hidden danger. I wanted to have my heart pound out of my chest, to have the thrill of magic, wonder, and fear. Now, I try to write those types of worlds; because of the books which inspired me. I only hope you love them as much as I do.
I still remember the first time I came acrossHeart of Mist.
It completely overtook my senses and propelled me into the Upper Realmof her universe. Bleak, the female lead, is unlike any other female protagonist I’d ever come across – being angry, brave, and dealing with trauma by playing with a piece of rope. She felt real.
And the Upper Realms? I wanted to be there; discovering the forests of Valia and traversing their immense tree houses.
In a realm where toxic mist sweeps the lands and magic is forbidden, all Bleak wants is a cure for her power.
Still grieving the death of her guardian and dangerously self-medicating with alcohol, Bleak is snatched from her home by the Commander of the King’s Army, and summoned to the capital.
But the king isn’t the only one interested in Bleak's powers.
The leader of an infamous society of warriors, the Valia Kindred, lays claim to her as well, and Bleak finds herself in the middle of a much bigger battle than she anticipated.
I think I sometimes get in trouble for saying this, but the truth is, I don’t give a shit about the likability of characters, whether I’m reading or writing. I’m here for a good time, not a long time. Because of that, fiction is the most riveting for me when interesting characters start making bad decisions. Any good narrative train wreck must create tension that keeps ratcheting up in its pages, and these are some of the books that do that most expertly, in my opinion. So, grab something to hold onto while you go on some of my favorite wild rides.
This book is chaos-defined, and I felt absolutely giddy when I first read it. Olivie Blake knows what readers want, and her books are not afraid to speak to their id. How could I not love a school of twentysomething lust-filled, murderous magicians?
It is also happy to scratch the romance itch; it’s the rare book where it feels like any two characters could have a romantic relationship, and many do. Even better, it’s full of delicious twists and betrayals and never lets its characters off the hook.
An Instant New York Times Bestseller A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee
The much-acclaimed viral sensation from Olivie Blake, The Atlas Six—now newly revised and edited with additional content.
• The tag #theatlassix has millions of views on TikTok • A dark academic debut fantasy with an established cult following that reads like The Secret History meets The Umbrella Academy • The first in an explosive trilogy • Indigo's Top 10 Most Anticipated Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books of 2022 • Tor.com's Most Anticipated SFF of 2022
Each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to earn…
As a child, I was fascinated with astronomy but discouraged from investigating the UFO phenomenon due to religious reasons. Not until I was in my forties, did I begin to see the strange Biblical hints of what ended up in my writing my book UFOs In The Bible. Along the way, my research led me to diverse related topics including Sumerian mythology and astrobiology which have resulted in a few more books (and more to come). I see logic as a fundamental tool for this line of investigation, and so, I embrace books that engage with the evidence logically. I firmly believe we must all make room for experiencers to tell their stories without recrimination.
UFOs, Nazis, Roswell, Freemasons, JFK, and the Apollo missions. This book covers a lot of very strange events and theories. Some of these theories you may have heard mention of and they probably sounded completely insane. However, to hear Mike tell it, really makes you wonder if there is some truth there. He unravels a giant rats’ nest of conspiracies in a way that really makes a lot of sense. I’m not saying it’s true necessarily, but Mike presents a lot of evidence that seems feasible. You gotta wonder.
Did ancient “visitors”—of extraterrestrial origin—come to Earth long, long ago and fashion man in their own image? Did they then lift the human race out of the ashes of a great global catastrophe around 10,500 BC? Were the science and secrets that they taught the ancients intended to be a guide for all humanity to the present era? Was this crucial information about our future and our true past hijacked by secretive cabals, some with bad intent and some with altruistic designs, who have held these secrets over the millennia? New York Times bestselling author Mike Bara says the answer…
As a writer who's struggled through building a lot of worlds and making them credible, I always admire a writer who can make me believe their world from the first paragraph. That conviction should go beyond belief. The reader should have great anticipation watching this world unfold, in learning how it works. All the writers I've mentioned achieved this goal, and exceeded it. My hat is off to them.
I loved The Rook for its amazing originality, the bizarre forms of magic shown by the various employees of the Checquy, and the true grit of the Rook, a young woman whose magic simply explodes when she's threatened. Though she's lost her memory, she's left herself notes in anticipation of that very thing! You have to admire her.
The body you are wearing used to be mine.' So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly…
