Here are 100 books that The Warlock in Spite of Himself fans have personally recommended if you like
The Warlock in Spite of Himself.
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I’ve always loved the darker side of fantasy. While heroes, knights, and handsome kings can occasionally be enjoyable, I want to know the other characters who have suffered, hurt, lost, grieved, and been hardened by grim circumstances and cruel fate. Those characters demonstrate the resilience of human nature and how goodness truly can exist even in the harshest environment. I love using this darkness in my own novels to show that even the tiniest spark can shine immensely bright—a true testament to the indefatigability of our spirits.
I love the cunning, wit, and charm of the one-and-only Vlad Taltos. Though he’s an assassin, he’s never cruel or wicked; he merely does what he needs to appease the “mafia-feeling” organization he works for. He’s almost more a swashbuckling rogue than a killer.
In his interactions with his familiar, Loiosh, you see his more nuanced side, the morality beneath the magic and swordplay. And few fantasy worlds I’ve ever visited have been as rich and colorful as those created in the Vlad Taltos series.
The first three fantastical adventures of assassin Vlad Taltos—now in one volume.
A welcome addition to any fantasy fan's library, The Book of Jhereg follows the antics of the wise-cracking Vlad Taltos and his dragon-like companion through their first three adventures—Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla.
There are many ways for a young man with quick wits and a quick sword to advance in the world. Vlad Taltos chose the route of assassin. From his rookie days to his selfless feats of heroism, the dauntless Vlad will hold readers spellbound—and The Book of Jhereg will take its place among the classic compilations…
My first toy was a plastic dinosaur, which I took to school and it bears my toothmarks on the tail. As a young teenager, I stumbled across the Dragonriders of Pern books, and my allegiance transferred to dragons. I find them fascinating, both beautiful and dangerous, and prefer books in which they have their own cultures and are strong characters in their own right. The novels I’ve recommended have great world building to draw you into the fascinating lives of dragons, and the humans who come to know them.
I like history and dragons, so I was immediately grabbed by a book offering an alternative history with dragons! The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars. Dragons are a major part of the war effort. A dragon chooses his or her captain, and the larger dragons are like warplanes or warships in the air, carrying the captain and a crew, including a medic.
The main human character, naval captain Will Laurence, is picked by a newly hatched dragon, which takes him into Britain’s Aerial Corps. I enjoyed reading how Laurence comes to love Temeraire, and that the dragon is a strong character in his own right.
Naomi Novik's stunning series of novels follow the adventures of Captain William Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire as they are thrown together to fight for Britain during the turbulent time of the Napoleonic Wars.
As Napoleon's tenacious infantry rampages across Europe and his armada lies in wait for Nelson's smaller fleet, the war does not rage on land and water alone. Squadrons of aviators swarm the skies - a deadly shield for the cumbersome canon-firing vessels. Raining fire and acid upon their enemies, they engage in a swift, violent combat with flying tooth and claw... for these aviators ride…
I’ve adored fantasy adventures for as long as I could read. A good story is a mirror of life, and sometimes life can feel hard, cold, and impersonal. Yet life can also be an adventure, and like fictional heroes, the way in which we overcome our challenges is what makes us truly human. And sometimes it’s the actions of fantastical or inhuman creatures that show us true humanity.
When a hero overcomes their challenges in a way that shows humanity, I stand up and cheer. When they do it in a way that’s creative or funny, I laugh. When an author can do both, I treasure it.
Skeeve, the main character, just feels so darned human. He’s a nobody with no real talent thrown into a deadly magical conspiracy and reluctantly taken on as an apprentice by a grumpy demon sorcerer who’s lost his magic powers. And while the pairing seems so unlikely, the friendship that develops between them warms my heart every time.
Plus, it’s such a great blend of fast-paced adventures, and slower cozy moments to reflect and build friendships. It also contains my favorite scene in all of fantasy, when our demon talks would-be assassins not only out of killing the pair, but also out of their entire bankroll!
Skeeve is a magician’s apprentice (and a wanna-be thief) until an assassin’s bolt kills his master, Garkin. Along with Aahz, the green-scaled, purple-tongued demon and master magician summoned by Garkin, he sets out on a quest to get even. The road to vengeance is bound to prove rocky, however, because Skeeve can barely light a candle with his beginning magic, and Aahz has lost his own considerable magical abilities as a consequence of Garkin’s summoning spell. Before they can confront the power-mad wizard who ordered Garkin’s assassination, they must survive a trip to a weird alternate dimension, encounters with Impish…
Stormwalker Series Connections In Time Bain's Story Book 1
By
S.G. Boudreaux,
Finding Family, Discovery, Destiny. This is what nineteen-year-old Bain Brinley is searching for.
In his homeland, far in the mountains, he stepped into what he could only describe as a time-portal and landed in a strange land known as Egypt. Then he falls through another portal during a storm, only…
I first found fantasy literature about the same time as I got into tabletop gaming, for me this was AD&D. Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Lieber, and Roger Zelazny were just a few of the authors that showed me what was possible. Writing my first novel cemented my understanding that I wanted to create the kinds of worlds that readers would want to experience. The kinds of worlds that would let them get away from their lives, if only for a few hours, where they could live a life of adventure and discovery. Just like the novels I recommended here did for me.
This is a novel of historical fiction set in the time of the French revolution. The series is named after the main character, Alan Lewrie. This novel introduces you to this rapscallion of a character, someone who is a spoiled, and indolent 16-year-old young man. Against his will he will find his place in the world and it will be in the very last place he would have imagined, commanding a ship of the Royal Navy. The novels follow his travels and adventures as he rises through the ranks, and it was incredibly fun to watch the young man evolve and grow into the man he becomes.
His exploits echo with the bustle of crowded ports and the crash of naval warfare...
It is 1780 and seventeen-year-old Alan Lewrie is a brash young libertine with a head full of dreams. When he is found in bed with the wrong woman, he is forced to leave his profligacy behind for a new life at sea.
Though sickness and hard labour await him aboard the tall-masted Ariadne, Lewrie finds himself gradually adapting to the world of a midshipman.
But as he heads for the war-torn Americas into a hail of cannonballs, will he ever catch wind of the plot…
I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because it’s a medieval detective story set in 1327 in Italy. I learned a lot about the intrigue and corruption of religious life in the medieval period and how closed and isolated communities could lose their way with murderous consequences.
It’s a fascinating insight into the world of a monk’s life in 14th-century Italy, packed full of the atmosphere of religious life inside the abbey. It is a dark and gothic tale of corruption, murder, and power-grabbing at all costs.
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.
William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.
Storytelling is my passion. I have loved writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres since I learned to read as a kid. I’ve won multiple awards, have an optioned screenplay, and am actively working on several paid script projects. I love to swap stories with other writers and dive into new worlds.
While hungry for really any fantasy book, I got into the Dragonrealm series just after it had gone out of print, so I had a lot of fun and rushes of victory scouring all the secondhand bookstores to find any book I could, even out of order. It’s a little dated and cheesy now, considering that the main character’s name is Bedlam, but if you can find a copy, it’s a fun trip down memory lane.
When Darkhorse receives word that the son of the great warlock, Cabe Bedlam, has been lured into captivity in the land of Zuu, the magical steed determines to rescue his young friend and stop his enemies' sorcery. Original.
Vivian Amberville® is a popular dark fantasy book series about a girl whose thoughts can reshape reality.
First in the series, The Weaver of Odds introduces 13-year-old Vivian to her power to alter luck, odds, and circumstances. She is a traveler between realities, whose imagination can twist reality into impossible…
I'm a novelis who's had a lifelong fascination with travel, lost civilizations, aquariums, swashbuckling stories (both true and fictional), dancing, dusty old bookstores and libraries, sangria, and sunny beaches. I grew up in beautiful south Louisiana and my earliest memories were in New Orleans. Living in “America's first melting pot” taught me to appreciate cultures, languages, cuisine, and music from a young age. Ancient and Medieval history and folklore remain major influences on my writing.
Master storyteller Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a few things to say about Atlantis. In The Maracot Deep, young zoologist Cyrus Headley travels to the edge of a deep ocean trench with a team of explorers. Suddenly, a giant sea monster attacks them and hurls them down into the trench. The explorers are rescued by the survivors of the destroyed Atlantis, who have dwelled on the seafloor for the past 8,000 years. Will Headley and his companions ever return to the surface again, or will they remain trapped for the rest of their lives like the Atlanteans? Readers expecting this novel to be like his earlier Sherlock Holms stories are in for a surprise, as it explores the spiritual and occult ideas he pondered later in his life.
The Maracot Deep is one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's less known works that definitely deserves major recognition for its craft and originality. One of the first works of literature since the ancient historians, it explores the theme of the lost city of Atlantis in an enchanting tale about the expedition of Professor Maracot and his team of explorers to the bottom of the ocean.
I define myself as a hopeless romantic and look for books that put me in the feels. When one does, it tends to last with me forever, if not a very long time. I read a range of books, and for me, a love story just makes my heart full like nothing else. I don’t care if it’s fantasy romance, contemporary romance, historical romance, etc. As you can see, I’m versed in genre romance all the way to the classics. Give me all the love stories.
This book is a joy from start to finish! The writing is quippy, lighthearted, and witty.
I loved this story so much for it’s perfect exploration of the sunshine grump trope. Penny and Willem are a delight! I also really enjoyed the way Clare weaved in magic into a mundane world. It was easy to understand and was also incredibly believable.
Enemies-to-lovers has never been more enchanting in this witchy romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Hex Yourself.
Penny Roundtree wants nothing more than to be a familiar to a witch. She’s been a member of the Society of Familiars ever since she was old enough to join the Fam. There’s just a small problem—no one’s hiring. Witches and warlocks are so long-lived that there are far more familiars available than witches to train them. So when an unorthodox arrangement to apprentice under the table to a forbidden warlock…
I made the mistake of reading Dracula as an eight-year-old (thanks, Mom and Dad, for paying attention to what I brought home from school book fairs). Beyond disrupting my sleep pattern, there were two significant consequences to this decision: 1) I became enthralled with the intersection of historical detail, mystery, and magic, an enchantment that continues to this day; and 2) I ultimately majored in English literature, with a concentration in Victorian literature. To my professors’ chagrin, I put that education to use in concocting my own historically-based magical mysteries (sorry, Dr. Steinitz). But hey—I’ve always got good recommendations in this milieu.
While Sherlock Holmes famously debunked anything that had even a vague whiff of the supernatural (looking at you, Hound of the Baskervilles), the same can’t be said for his creator. Entwistle offers a brilliantly imaginative take on what might have happened if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde teamed up to solve mysteries in a world where the supernatural was very, very real. Atmospheric touches ranging from fog-shrouded, gaslit streets to mysterious moors are the perfect complement to witty dialogue, and Entwistle manages to weave in a fair bit of historical detail despite the rip-roaring pace of the story.
The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle read like a volatile cocktail of Sherlock Holmes-meets-the-X-Files with a dash of steam punk and a whiff of London fog. Conan Doyle assumes the mantle of his fictional consulting detective and recruits a redoubtable Watson in the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, who brings to the sleuthing duo a razor-keen mind, an effervescent wit, and an outrageous sense of fashion. Together, two of the greatest minds in Victorian England solve bizarre murders, unravel diabolical plots and unearth long-buried mysteries—each with a paranormal twist.“My murder will take place in a darkened séance room—shot twice…
I've been writing Spooky Middle Grade for a number of years, and before that, I wrote horror for Hollywood. Living in Sleepy Hollow, spooky is in my blood, and if I didn't write creepy stories, they'd kick me out. I'm also a professional storyteller and have scared the bejeebus out of kids and adults in places like Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and Washington Irving's Sunnyside. Halloween is my favorite time of year. It more or less becomes a month-long village-wide celebration in October. Being inundated with all this crazy rubs off on you, and I have been well-steeped.
I like a little humor with my spookiness and this book has humor to spare. Just the idea of a horde of demonic stuffed animals brings a smile to my face. Rosen does a fantastic job creating a fully-fleshed out world and filling it with interesting and engaging characters. But seriously, it's the bunnies that make this shine. Even now, just writing about them brings a smile to my face.
Twelve-year-old Devin Dexter has a problem. Well, actually, many of them. His cousin, Tommy, sees conspiracies behind every corner. And Tommy thinks Devin's new neighbor, Herb, is a warlock . . . but nobody believes him. Even Devin's skeptical. But soon strange things start happening. Things like the hot new Christmas toy, the Cuddle Bunny, coming to life.
That would be great, because, after all, who doesn't love a cute bunny? But these aren't the kind of bunnies you can cuddle with. These bunnies are dangerous. Devin and Tommy set out to prove Herb is a warlock and to stop…
