Fantasy

An orphaned boy who sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs finds out he has a place waiting at a school for young witches and wizards, if the letters his aunt and uncle keep seizing ever reach him. The magic arrives one discovery at a time, so newcomers learn the rules right alongside Harry.

Noble families scheme and go to war over a kingdom's throne in a land where a season can last for years, while an old threat stirs beyond the northern wall. Told through characters on every side, it lets newcomers enter a vast world through personal stakes as winter draws near.

A legendary figure now hiding as a quiet innkeeper finally tells his true story, from a childhood among traveling performers to his hunger to study magic at a famed university. Told as one man's own account, it gives newcomers a close, human guide into a world where names hold power.

In an empire where ash falls from the sky and an immortal ruler keeps the enslaved skaa in fear, a street thief is pulled into a crew planning an impossible heist. Its magic runs on clear rules, fueled by swallowed metals, so newcomers can follow every fight and scheme as the plan takes shape.

Frail and bookish, Violet Sorrengail is ordered into the rider quadrant of Basgiath War College, where cadets either bond with dragons or die trying. She has rivals who want her gone and a mother who rules the school, so every training day is a test of survival.

What if the magic school you dreamed about as a kid turned out to be real, and still left you miserable? Quentin Coldwater gets into Brakebills, a hidden college of magic in New York, and finds that spells take years of hard work and don't make anyone happy.

In 1830s Oxford, Robin Swift trains at the Royal Institute of Translation, where silver bars use the gaps between languages to power the British Empire. As he learns the craft, he has to decide whether his loyalty belongs to the institution or to the people it exploits.

Graduation is a matter of survival at the Scholomance, a school with no teachers where monsters hunt students through the halls. El has a dark power that could level cities, and all she wants is to get out alive without anyone noticing what she is, or trying to use her power.

Logen Ninefingers, a notorious Northern fighter, has finally run out of luck and ends up in the Union, a land of war and scheming where the torturer Glokta hunts traitors. Nobody here is a hero, and the dark humor cuts as deep as the blades.

An empire worn down by endless war and feuding in its own ranks turns its armies on a rich free city, and the ancient sorcerer Anomander Rake stands in the way. Soldiers, mages and gods all work their own angles, and loyalty costs dearly.

What happens when the mercenaries you follow sign on with a sorceress who may be evil itself? The Company's physician, Croaker, keeps its records and sets down their campaigns for the Lady in plain terms, where survival matters more than who is right.

A hundred years after the gods destroyed one another, their bones still lie scattered across a Norse-inspired land, promising power to whoever digs them up. Three people chase vengeance, belonging and lost family through a world of bloodshed and hard choices.

Linus Baker, a by-the-book caseworker who inspects homes for magical children, is sent to a remote island orphanage where his report will decide its future. Six unusual kids and their guarded caretaker slowly pull his rule-bound life toward something warmer.

Viv, an orc mercenary tired of swinging a sword, retires to the city of Thune with a plan nobody there understands: open its first coffee shop. Fixing up the place, winning over locals and gathering odd new friends becomes the whole adventure.

Finlay Ashowan takes a job as cook for the King and Queen of Daxaria while hiding a quiet talent: he is a house witch, whose magic works through hearth and home. Kitchen banter, a prickly knight and a court mystery simmer together in a funny, warm romance.

When her library burns in a revolution, librarian Kiela flees to her quiet home island with a stash of forbidden spellbooks and Caz, her talking spider plant. Selling jam and small secret spells to her neighbors, she slowly builds friendships and a new life.