oddly specific things that’ll make me pick up a fantasy book + recommendations
Hello again, dear friends! ‘Tis I, Lila, back again with another post! A few weeks back, I saw a Top 10 Tuesday topic that went something like “things that’ll make me INSTANTLY pick up a book,” and though I didn’t have time to make a post for that Tuesday, the topic got me thinking. What are oddly specific things that’ll make me pick up a book—more specifically, a book categorized in my favorite genre, fantasy? So today, I’m talking about just that, plus giving recommendations as well! Let’s dive right in…
fantasies described as “haunting” and/or “whimsical”
This is a tough one to describe cause it’s more of a atmospheric vibe than something plot or character related? But I realized a few years back that I fall head over heels for “haunting” and “whimsical” fantasies. I especially love if there’s some sort of ethereal and dark element to it (but not too dark, cause I’m a major scaredy cat!) and maybe even a vague dark fairy tale feel as well, something that feels vaguely familiar but twisted.
recommendations
✨ House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
An ethereally atmospheric fantasy/mystery, House of Hollow involves the Hollow sisters—three mysterious sisters famous for going missing and reappearing as kids. When the oldest sister goes missing, the younger sisters must tumble through a mysterious fantasy and fae-like world mixed with reality in order to find her.
✨ The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
The Hazel Wood is a haunting dark fairy tale following Alice Proserpine’s search for her mom. Joined by her popular classmate Ellery Finch, Alice must search through the mysterious, strange, twisted fairy tale land that her author grandmother created in order to find her missing mother.
✨ The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
This one is a bit different, but kinda falls into this category with its whimsy. The Raven Cycle is a slightly literary contemporary YA fantasy about a group of teenagers who are on the hunt for a magical, sleeping Welsh king in the Virginia countryside. There are psychics and dreamwalkers and a magical forest, all tied together in the story!
fantasies involving sentient or magical forests
If a book involves a magical or (even better) sentient forest, you can count me in immediately! I don’t know what it is about this type of thing, because I’ve never been overly intersted in forests in real life, personally (not enough access to sunlight for my sunny taste, I’m more of a meadows and beaches kinda gal). Yet despite that fact, I adore books with magical forests!
recommendations
✨ Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
This enchanting YA retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses was one of the first YA fantasies I ever read waaaaaay back when I was 13, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. It really fits a faiy tale vibe while making the retelling something completely new and all its own. And! It involves a magical forest!!
✨ For The Wolf by Hannah Whitten
I’ve actually read about a quarter of this book and have really enjoyed it (I only set it down because I was in a reading slump). It’s a fairy tale-ish mixture of Beauty and the Beast and Red Riding Hood and—just my luck!—it involves a dangerous and magical forest that the heroine has a mysterious connection to!
✨ Uprooted by Naomi Novik
This was quite a popular book back when it was released and yet somehow I never managed to read it (yet)? From what I know, it’s an enchanting mash up of Rapunzel and Beauty and the Beast involving an ordinary girl being selected to be taught by a wizard in a tower in the woods. And apparently it involves forests and foresty magic!
fantasies that rep my cultural communities
I’m Black, Arab, and Indigenous American, so if a fantasy book is inspired by or involves one or more of those communities? Count. Me. In! I love seeing how authors get creative and represent elements of my cultural communities—it makes me feels so seen and happy and proud!!
recommendations
✨ The Legendborn Cycle by Tracy Deonn
The Legendborn Cycle reps my Black American heritage and does it so well!! A lot of people know this series incorporates Arthurian legend, but not many non-Black readers realize that part of the magic system in this series is actually Black American folk magic—called “root” or “hoodoo.” I absolutely love seeing so many Black American cultural elements honored by Deonn, especially since she incorporates them in the story in such an interesting way!
✨ Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim
Spice Road is an Arab/Lebanese fantasy by an author who’s Lebanese—just like me! Seeing the Arab and Lebanese parts of the world in Spice Road made me so joyful and proud! So many elements of my culture were included not only in the physical aesthetic of the world, but also in how the characters relate to it and to each other. Plus, it helps that the story itself and the characters and themes are total perfection!
✨ Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhorse
This series is an Indigenous inspired fantasy that takes elements of many different tribal regions and puts them in a whole new fantasy world. And it’s so cool! There are also discussions of what it means to be a member of a tribe that I found super interesting as well! Everything about this series is done so well and is so intriguing, it keeps me hanging on every word!
gothic fantasies
I love dark fantasies in general, but if it’s a gothic dark fantasy then it’s pretty much guaranteed a spot on my TBR! There’s just something so haunting and romantic about gothic fantasies!! Or maybe that’s just the Phantom of the Opera musical fan in me talking 😂 Either way, whatever it is about gothic fantasies, I love it!
recommendations
✨ Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
This book is a gothic YA fantasy with a mystery element that involves a girl who is literally haunted by the spectre of death. I’ve seen so many fellow readers and reviewers raving about this book, so I can’t wait to eventually get to it!
✨ The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten
The Foxglove King is an Adult gothic fantasy on my TBR that released earlier this year. Apparently it involves death magic, poisons, and deified royalty, and having heard that you can bet your ass that I immediately snagged an audiobook copy to add to my owned TBR!
✨ Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone
Another YA gothic fantasy on my TBR is Lakesedge. This book has a haunted gothic estate and a death god lurking in a lake and if that doesn’t sound intriguing, then I don’t know what is (and maybe I don’t want to know, lol)!
secondary world fantasies involving elements of our real world
This is another weirdly specific thing that might be a bit difficult to explain? I really enjoy when a fantasy takes place in a completely different world than ours, but the world building incorporates a few elements of the real world’s technology or history or something like that. It has to be done in an interesting way, obviously, or else it can get confusing, but if done well I think it can make a fantasy world really interesting and unique.
recommendations
✨ Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
Divine Rivals is a recent 2023 release on my TBR that I’ve seen only rave reviews for! Apparently, it’s set in a world that is similar to our world in the 1930s and 1940s where a war between gods is taking place. It sounds so interesting and extremely unique, so I’m super excited to read it soon!
✨ Cresent City by Sarah J. Maas
Cresent City is interesting in that it’s set in a secondary world that seems like our own modern urban world, but also has magic and is inhabited by magical creatures in addition to humans. I’m sure it’s probably been done before, but this is my first time seeing worldbuilding like that, and it has me pretty intrigued!
✨ Dark of the West by Joanna Hathaway
This series is a political fantasy inspired by World War I and involving elements of that war (such as using airplanes) despite being set in a different world than ours. Dark of the West has been on my TBR for a looooong time now, but I’m still looking forward to getting to it!
Alrighty, dear friends, that’s all I got for you today! It’s so interesting to analyze my own taste in books and to see the trends. I hope maybe you got some good recommendations from this post and I can’t wait to discuss what oddly specific things make YOU pick up a book down in the comments! Until next time, dear friends…
spill the beans, friends
- What are oddly specific things that get you interested in reading a book?
- Do you have any recommendations for books that fit those oddly specific things?
if you like whimsical ones, i’d recommend the keeper of night! it has an excellent historical setting, and some creatures are haunting… and interesting? xD
Oooh thanks for the recommendation—I’ve heard great things about Keeper of Night, so I’ll have to check the audiobook out from the library ASAP!
Oooh, I love all of these elements 🤗 I’m a huge fan of whimsical and haunting fantasy as well – like, Bridget Collins’ books? She’s got that style down to a T, and I’m just dying for her to publish another book already!
My favorite fantasy trope by far, though, is people being in disguise. I don’t need more than that. If there’s disguising going on, I’m reading the book! 🤩
Ooooh, I’ve never heard of Bridget Collins, but I’ll definitely have to check out her books asap! And, yes, people being in disguise is such a fun trope—it adds such intrigue and suspense to a story! I’m surprised I can’t think of too many fantasy books with the trope, though, since it’s such a fun element (admittedly, it very well could just be my brain is failing me at the moment, though, lol). Thanks for dropping by, Naemi, and I hope you’ve been having a fun summer!