While there has certainly been a lot about 2024 that has failed to meet many of our customer satisfaction standards, at least we’ve still got books.
In a year full of outstanding titles across genres from both established authors and exciting new voices, it’s been an excellent time for all of us who love to read. (And, say, if you have high plans of embracing the escapism of the written word in the coming months to get through well…everything.) Fantasy fans, as usual of late, have been absolutely spoiled for choice throughout 2024, whether your particular favorite tales have a more traditional adventure feel, a fairytale bent, or a dash of romantasy-style spice.
Here are our picks for the best fantasy books of 2024
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am once again here to tell everyone that it’s very likely T. Kingfisher is the best fantasy writer you’re not reading. The pen name of children’s author Ursula Vernon, Kingfisher’s books mix a deliciously old-school fantasy feel with a decidedly modern sensibility. Her stories are simultaneously bittersweet and beautiful, blending humor, heart, and no small amount of horror to create a tale that somehow feels both refreshingly new and like something that has always existed. Such is the case in A Sorceress Comes to Call, a seemingly traditional tale of evil mothers and oppressed daughters that still has plenty of modern things to say about topics ranging from emotional abuse and anxiety to misogyny and the ways women are told they must exist in the world. It feels positively timeless in all the best possible ways.
Much like Nettle & Bone and Thornhedge, A Sorceress Comes to Call is a fantasy with an unexpectedly dark underbelly and plenty of sharp teeth. From emotional abuse to body horror and possession, a disturbing, uncomfortable undertone runs throughout much of this story. Cordelia’s journey is most assuredly not an easy one—her growth comes slowly, in fits and starts and setbacks that see her stumble and fail before she succeeds. But perhaps that’s what makes it feel so magical. No spells necessary.
I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter Beagle
Peter Beagle has long been considered a master in the fantasy space and his classic stories like The Last Unicorn have been formative texts for many readers of this genre. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is his first new work in a decade, arriving 17 years after it was first announced and following a series of personal and legal battles for the author. The novel marks a triumphant return for Beagle, now firmly in control of his own intellectual catalog and backlist and it is, to put it bluntly, more than worth the wait.
Its story combines many of Beagle’s most familiar themes as an author, crafting a fully realized, pseudo-medieval fantasy world where dragons are real, princes must seek adventure, and young men long for lives with a different shape than the ones they’re currently living. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons follows the story of Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax, a dragon exterminator in the kingdom of Bellemontagne who prefers to simply go by Robert and hates his job. His business, inherited from his father, largely involves removing dragons—in this world most often small nuisances that are generally closer to household pests, though a few grow much larger—-from local homes and castles, and is a frequently gruesome endeavor. Though Robert secretly saves and protects as many dragons as possible, he feels rather rubbish about himself and longs for a different kind of life, perhaps as the valent to a prince or other dignitary that might allow him to see the world. But when Bellamontagne’s king summons him to clear the palace of dragons in advance of a visit from the crown prince of the neighboring kingdom of Corvinia, his life changes in ways he never would have expected.
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
Even the most hardcore fantasy lovers have to admit that the whole genre can sometimes be kind of extra, what with all the fated destinies, complicated prophecies, magical swords, and world-threatening forces of darkness. This is a big part of why Sarah Rees Brennan’s adult debut, Long Live Evil, feels like such a breath of fresh air.
It follows the story of Rae, a terminally ill young woman dying of cancer who is trying to come to terms with the things she’ll leave behind. Like her younger sister Alice, who spends most of her time reading their favorite fantasy series aloud at Rae’s bedside. In the melodramatic Time of Iron, characters are thinly drawn stereotypes with big destinies, from its woobie-fied bad boy hero who comes straight from the school of fictional characters inspired by Kylo Ren to its long-suffering heroine who isn’t given the chance to do much besides live her life on others’ terms. But when a mysterious stranger offers her the chance to change her fate, Rae is thrust into the world of her favorite novel, where she’ll have to track down a fictional McGuffin known as the Flower of Life and Death to save her life in the real world.
An epic adventure that is both a love letter to and a subversive send-up of the genre as a whole, it pokies gleeful fun at its most ridiculous tropes even as it embraces the very elements that have helped rocket fantasy to the top of virtually every publishing chart.
Crescent City: House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas
As popular as the fantasy romance genre has become in recent years, there’s still nobody doing it quite like Sarah J. Maas. An author of 800-page doorstoppers full of what often feels like a dozen main characters and secondary supporting figures, her books are literally overflowing with spice, sidequests, and soapy plot twists. And House of Flame and Shadow, the third in her Crescent City series, essentially takes all the familiar traits of a typical Maas tale and turns them up to eleven in an installment that certainly feels like it might be the last hurrah for Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar before the series shifts focus to other characters.
This book not only features appearances by several familiar faces from Maas’s popular A Court of Thorn and Roses series and intriguing worldbuilding around the origins of her concept of the Fae, but multiple long-awaited reunions and face-offs, as Bryce, Hunt, and their (many!) friends and acquaintances finally face off with the god-like Asteri who wish to destroy their homeworld of Midgard. While this book may not be particularly profound, man is it a good time—propulsive, fast-paced, occasionally ridiculous, and fully entertaining.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Popular author Leigh Bardugo is primarily known for her Grishaverse series, high fantasy YA novels about a magical subclass who can manipulate matter at its most fundamental levels. But although Bardugo certainly could have spent her career churning out endless cookie-cutter Grisha sequels and done just fine, she’s instead chosen to steadily expand her horizons as a fantasy writer, launching an adult contemporary dark academia series and, now, dipping her toes into the world of historical fiction with her latest novel, The Familiar.
Her first standalone fantasy and her first historical novel, The Familiar is a rich and lyrical mix of genres and tropes. A tale set in 16th-century Madrid during the height of the Spanish Inquisition, it is one part political thriller, one part slow-burn romance, and one survival saga, with a dash of fairytale magic on top. A back-handed love letter to the power of language, the novel’s prose is lyrical and lovely, its story precisely plotted, and its characters richly and fully realized. This is not a book I suspect many of us would have expected Bardugo to write—the magical elements, while important, are not even close to the story’s primary focus—but its absorbing mix of real-life history, complex female characters, entertaining wordplay, and generational resilience makes for a genuinely enchanting whole. Yes, it’s a quieter, more deliberate book than its author is normally known for, but it’s haunting in a way that will stay with you well after the last page.
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri
It is a truth universally acknowledged that many fantasy trilogies fail to stick the landing in their final installments. We don’t like to talk about it much, but some of the most popular, critically acclaimed, and generally beloved fantasy series have endings that are….let’s just call them disappointing, at best. Whether the plot feels rushed, key romances or character bonds fizzle, or some important element of world-building collapses under the weight of its own intricacy, such a failure is always a gut punch, if only because the rest of the story that preceded the ending was just that good. So when a series ender does manage to offer its readers a satisfying, emotionally resonant conclusion to literal years of story, it should be thoroughly celebrated. It’s not a small thing, and it’s certainly not guaranteed.
This is a lot to say that what author Tasha Suri has pulled off in The Lotus Empire, the final installment of her Burning Kingdoms trilogy, is genuinely impressive. A sweeping conclusion to one of the best epic fantasy series in recent memory, it’s both hopeful and heartbreaking, painfully bleak and unabashedly romantic by turns. A finale with genuine stakes, real loss, lots of action, and the sort of emotional payoff that can only come from three books’ worth of narrative build-up, it’s a triumph that will satisfy readers of all stripes.
Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
A wildly addictive fantasy romance that follows the relationship between a persecuted witch and a witch hunter, Kristen Ciccarelli’s latest isn’t particularly groundbreaking in this genre space. In fact, it’s chock full of familiar tropes and character types. But Heartless Hunter executes these well-trod beats flawlessly, building genuine tension and open romantic longing to an almost unbearable degree and dropping the sort of twists that keep the pages turning at a breakneck pace. (If you don’t finish this book within, say, 48 hours, I’ll be shocked.)
The story follows Rune Winters, a wealthy heiress forced to play the role of a ditzy airhead to hide her magical abilities in the wake of a revolution that made witchcraft a crime punishable by death. By day, she attends meaningless social gatherings and gossips about fashion, but by night she uses her secret identity as the vigilante known as the Crimson Moth to rescue other members of her kind who live in hiding. Determined to do whatever it takes to rescue an imprisoned witch, she begins courting Gideon Sharpe, one of the kingdom’s most famous witch hunters. He in turn, agrees to the relationship because unbeknownst to Rune, he thinks she might be involved with the Moth. But their fake relationship begins to blossom into something neither of them expected, which makes the politics surrounding them both all the more complicated—-and dangerous. (Thank goodness the sequel arrives early next year.)
Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim, translated by Anton Hur
The first book in English translation from award-winning South Korean speculative author Sung-Il Kim (and translated by Anton Hur), Blood of the Old Kings is a sweeping fantasy adventure that deftly tackles questions of fate, free will, and destiny. Bolstered by a trio of compelling leads and deliciously rich world-building that mixes Western influences (the omnipresent, menacing Empire feels very deliberately Roman Empire-coded) with completely new and occasionally jaw-droppingly creative details. (For example: The Empire runs using Power Generators, which are the corpses of dead sorcerers that essentially function as generational magical batteries. It’s as horrifying as it sounds!)
Set in a world in which the Empire rules all, Blood of the Old Kings seamlessly weaves together the stories of three very different protagonists: Loran, a widowed swordswoman seeking vengeance against those who killed her family who is willing to make a pact with a dragon to get it; Arienne, a student sorcerer desperate to escape a life where her abilities mean she is bound to the Empire not just for the duration of her life, but the death that follows it; and Cain, an immigrant in the Empire’s capital city who’s trying to solve the murder of his oldest friend. If it feels like these stories couldn’t have less to do with one another—initially, you’re right. But as Kim’s tale continues, they become further tied to one another, in ways both predictable and shocking.
The Bright Sword by Lex Grossman
Thoroughly researched and sure to delight longtime Arthurian lovers as well as newcomers to the world of Camelot (likely by way of his The Magicians series), Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword is full of nods to the interpretations that have come before it—the romances of Chretien de Troyes, the heartfelt sincerity of T.H. White—-all while boldly tracking its own path through familiar ground. Because, unlike many Arthurian retellings that have come before it, Grossman delves into a rarely explored aspect of the legend: What comes afterward. When The Bright Sword begins, Arthur is dead, Camelot lies broken, and the dream of what might have been feels lost.
Enter Collum, a knight errant from the North, who arrives in the hopes of joining the Round Table and finds the world he expected has changed when he wasn’t looking. What follows is a quest, as Collum and as well as a decidedly third-tier assortment of knights set off to find a missing comrade, and a story that’s as much about healing and grace as it is epic battles or enchanted swords. This take on the twilight of Arthur’s Britain is beautiful to behold.
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
The sophomore novel from The Saint of Bright Doors author Vajra Chandrasekera, Rakesfall is like absolutely nothing else on this list. Or heck, really like nothing else you’ll read this year. A complex tale that varies wildly in tone, structure, and narrative style throughout, the genre-bending story mixes elements of fantasy, science fiction, surrealism, and religion into a bizarre lyrical whole.
Told in ten parts, Rakesfall follows the story of Annelid and Leveret, who grow up in the wake of the Sri Lankan civil war, and then reincarnate over multiple lifetimes, across worlds, futures, and even narrative genres. Occasionally returning as two people, occasionally four, or sometimes, even more, their souls are repeatedly drawn to one another and to thorny questions of belief, destiny, colonialism, and oppression. Chandrasekera’s beautiful prose is striking but this is a fantasy story that’s not for the faint of heart—-but absolutely worth it for those willing to commit to the ride.
A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
Author Daniele Jensen has been writing excellent female-focused fantasy since her (wildly underrated!) Malediction trilogy was first published a decade ago. Now, with A Fate Inked in Blood, Jensen finally seems well on her way to the mainstream recognition within this genre she’s so long deserved. Set in a Norse mythology-inspired fantasy world where “unfated” humans—those who have been gifted one drop of blood from one of the Nordic gods—have the ability to magically defy destiny, one woman fights to retain control of her future on her own terms, after multiple powerful men plot to use her for their own ends.
Twenty-year-old Freya has kept her powers secret throughout her life. Why? Because she’s the Hiln-blessed shield maiden prophesied to unite her native Skaland under the one who controls her fate. But when she’s forcibly bound to an ambitious jarl after her true identity is exposed, she finds herself suddenly part of a dangerous political game (and in a steamy forbidden romance with the jarl’s handsome son). A Fate Inked In Blood’s lush worldbuilding and compelling character arcs not only makes it an excellent historical fantasy in its own right but a great introduction for anyone who’s been itching to dip their toe into the romantasy trend.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB