25 Best Fantasy Books for YA Readers
by Feliza Casano
Fantasy has exploded in the young adult category, and the past decade alone has seen some really incredible works. But with so many excellent stories to check out, there’s a chance you might have missed some of the best.
Here are 25 of the best fantasy books for teen or adult readers to check out — new and classic tales alike, these stories have everything from love triangles to mythical creatures, fantastical worlds to magic that lives in our own reality.
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Six Crimson Cranes
Buy from:If you love fairy tales and folklore, you won’t want to miss this breathtaking #booktok sensation! It’s about a princess named Shiori whose evil stepmother banishes her and turns her brothers into swans. The exiled princess must find her brothers, break their curse, and save her kingdom from the clutches of a growing conspiracy.
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Eragon
Buy from:This saga, part of the New York Times bestselling series, The Inheritance Cycle, follows Eragon on a life-changing journey where he must rely on instinct and wisdom as he makes weighted choices that can restore or destroy the Empire. With elements of magic, prophecy, and battles weaved together, this tale is a page-turning, perfect read for Lord of the Rings lovers!
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The Gilded Ones
Buy from:This gorgeous fantasy novel inspired by West African folklore became a New York Times bestseller and Teen Vogue named it one of the best books of the year. Once you crack open the cover, you’ll instantly get transported into a fantasy world with blood ceremonies, magical warriors, and a corrupt empire that needs saving.
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Hotel Magnifique
Buy from:Do you remember the song “Hotel California” by The Eagles? This book has a similar vibe. Two sisters jump at the chance to work at the upscale and magical Hotel Magnifique, which changes location every day. But once inside the hotel, the girls realize that something sinister lurks behind the glitz and glam — and leaving is not an option.
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Skin of the Sea
Buy from:Dive beneath the ocean waves in this New York Times bestselling fantasy novel inspired by The Little Mermaid and West African folklore. When Simi rescues a human boy from drowning, she angers the gods and must make amends. To do so, she travels across the ocean, facing monsters, strange lands, dark secrets, and her traitorous heart. Don’t miss the sequel, Soul of the Deep!
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Song of Silver
Buy from:A fallen kingdom, hidden magic, and a girl with the power to destroy or redeem it all — this bestselling book has everything YA fantasy lovers adore! When Lan and Zen meet, their destinies become entwined. Together, they journey to the deepest reaches of the empire, searching for answers while keeping their darkest secrets hidden from each other.
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Seasparrow
Buy from:When you need an epic YA fantasy series to get lost in for days or weeks on end, the Graceling Realm series is just the thing. Seasparrow is the most recent installment, and it follows Queen Bitterblue as she travels to the nearby kingdom of Winterkeep. Battles, romance, magic, and adventure await inside the pages of this five-book series that has sold over 1.7 million copies!
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Ash Princess
Buy from:Ash Princess took the YA world by storm as readers everywhere obsessed over it. This dark fantasy novel is about a fallen princess named Theodosia, who became a prisoner in her kingdom. She devises a plan to win back the throne, but it requires deception, courage, and plenty of luck to pull off. This heart-pounding fantasy novel will have you gasping at every shocking plot twist!
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The Queen’s Assassin
Buy from:Assassins, forbidden romance, and court drama? Yes, please! Cal is an assassin, magically bound to the queen to do her bidding. Shadow is an aspiring assassin, forced into becoming a servant of the court. When war threatens the kingdom, these two deadly teens team up to root out spies and eliminate threats to the crown. This bestselling fantasy duology will keep you reading well past your bedtime!
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House of Salt and Sorrows
Buy from:If you like eerie fantasy novels with ghostly visions, sinister plots, and mysterious deaths, this one is for you! It’s a retelling of Twelve Dancing Princesses, in which several sisters die in mysterious ways. Believing a family curse is to blame, Annaleigh goes looking for answers. She attends opulent balls with her remaining sisters and dodges threatening apparitions as she uncovers the chilling truth behind her sisters’ deaths.
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The Wrath & the Dawn
Buy from:In Khorasan, each new day’s sun rises on another family in mourning: Khalid, the 18-year-old ruler of Khorasan, takes a new wife each night, only to have her executed at dawn. That is, until 16-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid with a plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the caliph for the women he’s killed, including Shahrzad’s best friend. The series continues in The Rose & the Dagger.
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The Kingdom of Back
Buy from:Perhaps best known for her sci-fi series Legend, Marie Lu is every bit as masterful in this standalone fantasy novel, which centers a real-life woman forgotten to history: Nannerl, the older sister of Amadeus Mozart. A prodigious piano talent herself, Nannerl’s career will be over as soon as she comes of marriageable age — unless she takes the costly deal offered by a mysterious stranger.
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The Guinevere Deception
Buy from:The Camelot Rising trilogy begins with a betrothal between Princess Guinevere and young King Arthur, a union contrived by the wizard Merlin to keep King Arthur and Camelot safe. But this is no medieval matter of alliances between powerful kingdoms; Guinevere is actually a changeling who must navigate the rigid ways of royalty while the people of Camelot clamor for a new way of life.
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Half Bad
Buy from:Nathan is something of an anomaly: He’s both White witch and Black witch, the illegitimate son of the most dangerous witch in the world, and in possession of a power unlike the magic most of the world knows. Imprisoned in a cage and hunted by all, Nathan knows he must escape before his 17th birthday, when he can receive three gifts from his powerful and deadly father. But to receive those gifts, Nathan has to find his father first — and stay out of the hands of those who would see him locked up forever. Fans of this one can read the rest of Nathan's story in The Half Bad Trilogy.
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Seraphina
Buy from:Rachel Hartman’s award-winning debut novel takes teen readers into a world where dragons and humans live side by side, even as tensions between them rise. The titular Seraphina is half human and half dragon, with a dragon mother able to take human form and a human father who can’t stand dragons. Called upon to help investigate a royal family member’s murder alongside a very perceptive prince, Seraphina’s ability to keep her ancestry hidden is in peril, and failing to do so may mean forfeiting her own life. Seraphina is filled with timely themes and has all the potential to become a teen fantasy classic. Fans can pick up the sequel, Shadow Scale.
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Wicked Fox
Buy from:In modern-day Seoul, 18-year-old Miyoung can pass as an ordinary girl, when in fact she’s a gumiho: a nine-tailed fox that lives off the energy of men. One night, an encounter in the forest with a human boy named Jihoon costs Miyoung her fox bead, and with it her immortality. Jihoon and Miyoung grow close, but ancient forces threaten their entire world — which grows more expansive in the sequel, Vicious Spirits.
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The Reader
Buy from:After Sefia’s father was brutally murdered, she escaped with her aunt into the wild. When her aunt disappears as well, Sefia is left with only a mysterious rectangular object from her father to hint at where they both went. And soon, Sefia discovers the real nature of the object: It’s a book, the first one she’s seen in her entire life. The discovery starts her on a journey to learn the real reason her father was killed — and to explore her own destiny.
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Rebel of the Sands
Buy from:Gifted gunslinger Amani has no greater desire than to get out of backwater Dustwalk, where her status and poverty keeps her locked in an unending cycle. But after a foreign wanderer named Jin appears in Dustwalk, Amani’s world explodes, opening a path for escape on the back of a mythical horse. After living all her life in the dull, mundane Dustwalk, Amani had no idea that magic still existed in the world — and that magic may be a part of her, too. Rebel of the Sands kicks off a three-book series.
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Fireborne
Buy from:Orphaned by the same uprising that toppled the aristocracy, Annie and Lee are now in training to join the governing body of dragonriders. But when members of the old regime rise up to regain control, the friends are faced with life-changing choices: Will Lee betray his new family to go back to his aristocratic roots? And will Annie protect him? The high-flying war continues in book two of the Aurelian Cycle series.
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Akata Witch
Buy from:Fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Harry Potter will be swept away by this adventurous, Nigerian-based tale about a quartet of new friends who discover they have access to powerful magic. Born in New York City, Sunny Nwazue feels out of place and isolated in Nigeria — until she’s invited into a hidden world and handed a dauntingly dangerous task. The series continues in Akata Warrior and Akata Woman.
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The Wicked Bargain
Buy from:Meet Mar León de la Rosa, a fearless transmasculine nonbinary teenager who possesses the incredible power to manipulate fire and ice. On Mar's sixteenth birthday, things take a dark turn when el Diablo arrives to claim the soul of Mar's father and the entire crew of their ship. Despite Mar's magical abilities, their powers are not enough to undo the wicked bargain made by their father. Will Mar be able to confront el Diablo, avenge their father's death, and lead a revolution that will change the course of history? Join Mar in this thrilling tale of courage, magic, and adventure on the high seas!
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The Kinder Poison
Buy from:With The Kinder Poison, Natalie Mae has built a fascinating world full of ancient magic, political intrigue, and a game with deadly consequences. Zahru is an animal Whisperer for the royal family, a lifelong appointment that's cut short when she becomes the human sacrifice for the Crossing, a race between the royal heirs to decide on the kingdom’s next ruler. No one in Zahru’s position has survived this cruel, generations-long tradition. Can she be the first?
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An Ember in the Ashes
Buy from:The first book in Sabaa Tahir’s Ember quartet introduces Laia and Elias, two cogs in the great machinery that is the Martial Empire. Laia, a slave, struggles to survive in one of the poorest parts of the empire until her brother is arrested for treason. Rebels offer to save him – as long as Laia agrees to spy for them inside the Empire’s most prestigious military academy. It’s there Laia meets Elias, the school’s best soldier — who wants to escape the yoke of the tyrannical empire.
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Vampire Academy
Buy from:Rose and Lissa are best friends — and a lot more. Lissa is a princess of the Moroi vampires; Rose, a half-human Dhampir, is her bodyguard. But that’s not an easy job, because the world’s most dangerous vampires want to take Lissa for their own … and after being on the run, Rose and Lissa have been recaptured and returned to the most dangerous place they could possibly go: St. Vladimir’s Academy, a boarding school for vampire elite.
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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Buy from:Sixteen-year-old Jacob’s journey has brought him to a seemingly abandoned island off the coast of Wales, the site of the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But as Jacob explores the ruins, he begins to suspect that the children weren’t just peculiar, but potentially dangerous … and then he discovers the children are still alive. Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children is a darkly entrancing series for those who love the strange and mysterious.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2014 and updated in 2020 and 2023.