Fantasy Books for Adults
Fantasy books that contain mature themes
What do we mean by fantasy books for adults? If this list represented movies rather than books they would all be 15 or 18 certificated as they contain mature themes and scenes of a sexual or violent nature. Think the Game of Thrones series - which contains all of the above ... and more! We would recommend the following books to ages 15 and over.
Score: 343
Our rating: 10.0 | 145 positive reader reviews
Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power - the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring - the ring that rules them all - which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 1
Score: 313
Our rating: 9.5 | 101 positive reader reviews
Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he [...]
The Kingkiller Chronicle: Book 1
Score: 258
Our rating: 9.6 | 55 positive reader reviews
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fe [...]
The Stormlight Archive: Book 1
Score: 258
Our rating: 9.8 | 51 positive reader reviews
Roshar is a world of stone swept by tempests that shape ecology and civilization. Animals and plants retract; cities are built in shelter. In centuries since ten orders of Knights fell, their Shardblade swords and Shardplate armor still transform men into near-invincible warriors. Wars are fought [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 1
Score: 237
Our rating: 9.2 | 39 positive reader reviews
Bled dry by interminable warfare, infighting and bloody confrontations with Lord Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, the vast, sprawling Malazan empire simmers with discontent. Even its imperial legions yearn for some respite. For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his Bridgeburners and for Tattersail, sol [...]
Riftwar Saga: Book 1
Score: 234
Our rating: 9.0 | 47 positive reader reviews
Crydee, a frontier outpost in the Kingdom of the Isles. An orphaned young boy named Pug becomes a master magician’s apprentice and two world’s destinies are forever changed. The peace that he has known all his short life disappears and is replaced by war in the shape of invaders from [...]
The Farseer Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 217
Our rating: 9.2 | 28 positive reader reviews
In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma. Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with [...]
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: Book 1
Score: 215
Our rating: 9.5 | 22 positive reader reviews
He called himself Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, because he dared not believe in the strange alternative world on which he suddenly found himself - the Land. But the Land tempted him. As a leper, in his own world he had been an outcast, unclean, a pariah. Now he was regarded as a saviour, the r [...]
Score: 208
Our rating: 9.7 | 16 positive reader reviews
Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history di [...]
The Drenai Novels: Book 1
Score: 205
Our rating: 9.8 | 9 positive reader reviews
Druss, Captain of the Axe, whose fame was legendary, had chosen to wait for death in a mountain hideaway. But mighty Dros Delnoch, the last stronghold of the Drenai Empire, was under threat from Nadir hordes who had destroyed everything else in their path. All hope rests on the skills of one man. [...]
The Inheritance Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 205
Our rating: 10.0 | 6 positive reader reviews
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky - a palace above the clouds where gods' and mortals' lives are intertwined. There, to her shock, Yeine is named one of the potential heir [...]
Score: 201
Our rating: 10.0 | 3 positive reader reviews
International bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay's latest work is set in a world evoking early Renaissance Italy and offers an extraordinary cast of characters whose lives come together through destiny, love, and ambition. In a chamber overlooking the nighttime waterways of a [...]
Score: 201
Our rating: 10.0 | 3 positive reader reviews
For centuries the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by a god known as the Raven. But in their hour of need, the Raven speaks nothing to its people. It is into this unrest that the warrior Eolo - aide to the true heir to the throne - arrives. In seeking to help his master reclaim his city, Eolo [...]
The First Tale of Witness
Score: 198
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Many years have passed since three Teblor warriors brought carnage and chaos to Silver Lake.Now the tribes of the north no longer venture into the southlands. The town has recovered and yet the legacy remains. Indeed, one of the three, Karsa Orlong, is now revered as a god, albeit an indif [...]
Score: 195
Our rating: 9.8 | 1 positive reader reviews
A world divided.A queendom without an heir.An ancient enemy awakens.The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her [...]
Score: 192
Our rating: 8.8 | 18 positive reader reviews
The Silmarillion provides the background to Middle-earth, the setting of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. It is an account of the Elder Days; the First Age when Morgoth, the First Dark Lord dwelt in Middle-earth and the war waged upon him by the High Elves to recover the Silmarils, jewels co [...]
Score: 192
Our rating: 9.7 | 0 positive reader reviews
Set in a world of goblin wars, stag-sized battle ravens, and assassins who kill with deadly tattoos, Christopher Buehlman's The Blacktongue Thief begins a 'dazzling' (Robin Hobb) fantasy adventure unlike any other.Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small f [...]
Chronicles of the Black Company: Books of the North, Book 1
Score: 191
Our rating: 9.0 | 11 positive reader reviews
Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more... [...]
Chronicles of the Raven: Book 3
Score: 189
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The power of the land has manifested itself in Lyanna, a five year old girl. She has the power to sweep the four colleges of magic aside, or - unknowingly - to destroy Balaia. And the colleges will do anything to control her. If she cannot be controlled, she'll be killed ... but first they ha [...]
The Broken Earth: Book 1
Score: 189
Our rating: 9.5 | 1 positive reader reviews
This is the way the world ends... for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal [...]
Mordant's Need: Book 2
Score: 188
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Aided by the powerful magic of Vagel, the evil Arch-Imager, the merciless armies are marching against the kingdom of Mordant. In its hour of greatest need, two unlikely champions emerge. One is Geraden, whose inability to master the simplest skills of Imagery has made him a laughingstock. The oth [...]
Pact and Pattern #1
Score: 188
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
My name is Wen Alder. My name is Foolish Cur.All my life, I have been torn between two legacies: that of my father, whose roots trace back to the right hand of the Emperor. That of my mother's family, who reject the oppressive Empire and embrace the resistance.I can choose [...]
The First Law: Book 1
Score: 187
Our rating: 8.5 | 15 positive reader reviews
Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers. Nobleman, dashing officer and would-b [...]
Broken Empire: Book 1
Score: 187
Our rating: 9.0 | 7 positive reader reviews
Before the thorns taught me their sharp lessons and bled weakness from me I had but one brother, and I loved him well. But those days are gone and what is left of them lies in my mother's tomb. Now I have many brothers, quick with knife and sword, and as evil as you please. We ride this broke [...]
The Gormenghast Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 185
Our rating: 9.0 | 6 positive reader reviews
Titus Groan is the Seventy Seventh Earl of Gormenghast in waiting and his birth begins this story and that of his rather eccentric family, their servants and the kingdom of Gormenghast itself. The story covers the first two years of Titus’ young life, from birth to his investiture as the se [...]
New Crobuzon: Book 2
Score: 184
Our rating: 9.2 | 1 positive reader reviews
A colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination. A human cargo bound for servitude in exile... A pirate city hauled across the oceans... A hidden miracle about be revealed... These are the ingredients of an astonishing story. It is the story of a prisoner's journey. Of [...]
Chronicles of the Raven: Book 1
Score: 183
Our rating: 9.0 | 4 positive reader reviews
The Raven are six men and an elf. They have fought together for years. When they agree to escort a Xesteskian mage on a sinister mission, they find themselves fighting for one of the most evil Colleges of magic known to man or elf. [...]
The Divine Cities: Book 1
Score: 182
Our rating: 9.2 | 0 positive reader reviews
You've got to be careful when you're chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and [...]
The Raven’s Mark #1
Score: 181
Our rating: 9.1 | 1 positive reader reviews
The republic faces annihilation, despite the vigilance of Galharrow's Blackwings. When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow and a mysterious noblewoman must investigate a long dead sorcerer's legacy. But there is a conspiracy within the citadel [...]
Chronicles of the Raven: Book 2
Score: 179
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The spell Dawnthief has been cast and the Wytch lords have been banished. In the skies above where Denser cast the spell a rift has formed, a dirty brown gap in the blue that throws a shadow at noon - it is a door into another dimension. [...]
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the [...]
The Winnowing Flame Trilogy #1
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The great city of Ebora once glittered with gold. Now its streets are stalked by wolves. Tormalin the Oathless has no taste for sitting around waiting to die while the realm of his storied ancestors falls to pieces - talk about a guilt trip. Better to be amongst the living, where there are tavern [...]
Alex Verus series: Book 10
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Once Alex Verus was a diviner trying to live quietly under the radar. Now he's a member of the Light Council who's found success, friends . . . and love. But it's come with a price - the Council is investigating him, and if they find out the truth, he'll lose everything.Mea [...]
Iconoclasts #3
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
“AT LONG LAST, EVEN GODS WILL KNOW REGRET…”Agnes Manteo now bears her father’s sentient Djao sword, along with a terrible revelation—the gods are charlatans, ancient sorcerers who draw their strength from the suffering of humanity. She and her Syraeic companions hav [...]
The Lot Lands #3
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The long-awaited war has come in the sweeping conclusion to the Lot Lands trilogy—another irresistibly swashbuckling, swaggering, foul-mouthed fantasy from the author of The Grey Bastards (“Nonstop action, though not for faint hearts.”—The Wall Street Journa [...]
The Raincatcher's Ballad #3
Score: 178
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
A girl with the power of a god. An assassin seeking vengeance. A world on the brink of war.After all the battles and devastation, Serena just wants a place to call home. Unable to trust her own mind after being overtaken by a demon, the last living Siren-born is desperate to finally stop i [...]
The Sword of Truth Series: Book 1
Score: 174
Our rating: 8.1 | 12 positive reader reviews
One man, Richard Cypher, holds the key to the fate of three nations and of humanity. But until he learns the Wizard's First Rule his chances of succeeding in his task are slim. And his biggest problem is admitting that magic exists at all... [...]
The Burning Kingdoms Book 1
Score: 164
Our rating: 8.3 | 0 positive reader reviews
A long-imprisoned princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic come together to rewrite the fate of an empire in this “fiercely and unapologetically feminist tale of endurance and revolution set against a gorgeous, unique magical world” (S. A. Chakraborty).E [...]
War for the Rose Throne #3
Score: 158
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Gangster, soldier, priest. Queen's Man. Governor. Tomas Piety has everything he ever wanted. In public he's a wealthy, highly respected businessman, happily married to a beautiful woman and Governor of his home city of Ellinburg. In private, he's no longer a gang lord but [...]
Score: 158
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
“The horror master…puts his unique spin on slasher movie tropes.”-USA TodayIn horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?Like his [...]
The Mortal Techniques
Score: 138
Our rating: 7.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
He'll die as many times as it takes.The Ipian Empire was once a land that welcomed dragons and spirits alike, but a century of war and bloodshed saw them all but vanish. Now, the lost things are returning and the Onryo have gathered. Five legendary spirits with mysterious powers, [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 3
Score: 126
Our rating: 9.9 | 5 positive reader reviews
Blood runs truer than oaths. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud as winter approaches like an angry beast. In the northern wastes a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears hi [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 2
Score: 125
Our rating: 9.0 | 13 positive reader reviews
Throughout Westeros, the cold winds are rising. From the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding lands of Winterfell, chaos reigns as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms stake their claims through tempest, turmoil and war. As a prophecy of doom cuts across the s [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 3
Score: 124
Our rating: 9.9 | 3 positive reader reviews
The Starks are scattered. Robb Stark may be King in the North, but he must bend to the will of the old tyrant Walder Frey if he is to hold his crown. And while his youngest sister, Arya, has escaped the clutches of the depraved Cersei Lannister and her son, the capricious boy-king Joffrey, Sansa [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 10
Score: 123
Our rating: 10.0 | 9 positive reader reviews
The Bonehunters march for Kolanse, led by Adjunct Tavore. This woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, will challenge the gods - if her own mutinous troops don't kill her first. Her enemy, the Forkrul Assail, seek to cl [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 2
Score: 120
Our rating: 9.2 | 14 positive reader reviews
In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha’ik and her followers prepare for the long-prophesied uprising known as the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in size and savagery, this maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust will embroil the Malazan Empire in one of the bl [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 5
Score: 120
Our rating: 10.0 | 6 positive reader reviews
After decades of warfare, the five tribes of the Tiste Edur are united under the implacable rule of the Warlock King of the Hiroth. But the price of peace is a pact with a hidden power whose motives may be deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether has devoured all lesser neighbors [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 3
Score: 118
Our rating: 9.8 | 7 positive reader reviews
The ravaged continent of Genabackis is a terrifying new empire, the Pannion Domin, that devours all. An uneasy allliance resists: Onearm's army, Whiskeyjack's Bridgeburners and former enemies - forces of Warlord Caladan Brood, Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii mages, and the Rhivi people [...]
The Kingkiller Chronicle: Book 2
Score: 118
Our rating: 9.6 | 11 positive reader reviews
Picking up the tale of Kvothe Kingkiller once again, we follow him into exile, into political intrigue, courtship, adventure, love and magic ... and further along the path that has turned Kvothe, the mightiest magician of his age, a legend in his own time, into Kote, the unassuming pub landlord. [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire Companion
Score: 118
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
From the masterly imagination behind A Game of Thrones - one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time and an unmissable HBO hit series - comes a definitive history of Westeros’s past as told by Archmaester Gyldayn.Unravelling events that led to A Song of Ice and Fire, Fire and [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 6
Score: 117
Our rating: 10.0 | 3 positive reader reviews
The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha'ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y'Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 8
Score: 117
Our rating: 10.0 | 3 positive reader reviews
In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 7
Score: 116
Our rating: 10.0 | 2 positive reader reviews
All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor, while the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against its own people. The Errant, once a farseeing go [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 9
Score: 114
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every soldier in every world… In Letherii, the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen. And in these sa [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 5
Score: 112
Our rating: 8.4 | 4 positive reader reviews
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance—beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But [...]
The Farseer Trilogy: Book 3
Score: 110
Our rating: 9.8 | 8 positive reader reviews
With the king no longer living and the heir, Verity, missing and declared dead, Prince Regal has treacherously seized the throne. Regal’s torture has left Fitz more dead than alive, and more closely than ever bonded with his wolf. All who once loved him believe him dead: even Molly, now pre [...]
A Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 4
Score: 109
Our rating: 9.2 | 3 positive reader reviews
In Northern Genabackis, tribal mountain warriors raid southern flatlands. Years later, Tavore, Adjunct to the Empress, enters the last Malazan stronghold. New to command, she must hone 12,000 recruits to resist the Whirlwind of her sister Sha in the Holy Desert. The power struggle of the seer' [...]
The Aspect Emperor: Book 1
Score: 101
Our rating: 10.0 | 1 positive reader reviews
The Three Seas are on the march under the leadership of Anasûrimbor Khellus. Khellus has spent these last twenty years conquering the various nations and forming the largest force he can to assault Golgotterath, the home of the No-god and his Consult, before they can gain full strength and [...]
Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach: Book 1
Score: 101
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Set in the awe-inspiring world of the Malazan Empire, three tales of the enigmatic and eccentric necromancers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach collected in a single, readily available volume. [...]
A Song of Ice and Fire: Book 4
Score: 100
Our rating: 7.0 | 6 positive reader reviews
The Lannisters are in power on the Iron Throne.The war in the Seven Kingdoms has burned itself out, but in its bitter aftermath new conflicts spark to life. The Martells of Dorne and the Starks of Winterfell seek vengeance for their dead. Euron Crow’s Eye, as black a pirate as ever r [...]
Legends of the Red Sun: Book 3
Score: 100
Our rating: 9.8 | 2 positive reader reviews
A new and corrupt Emperor seeks to rebuild the ancient structures of Villjamur to give the people of the city hope in the face of great upheaval and an oppressing ice age. But when a stranger called Shalev arrives, empowering a militant underground movement, crime and terror becomes rampant. The [...]
Shadowmarch Quartet: Book 4
Score: 100
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Southmarch Castle is about to be caught between two implacable enemies, the ancient, immortal Qar and the insane god-king, the Autarch of Xis. Meanwhile, its two young defenders, Princess Briony and Prince Barrick, are both trapped far away from home and fighting for their lives. And now, somethi [...]
Broken Empire: Book 3
Score: 100
Our rating: 9.8 | 2 positive reader reviews
The path to the throne is broken – only the broken can walk it. The world is cracked and time has run through, leaving us clutching at the end days. These are the days that have waited for us all our lives. These are my days. I will stand before the Hundred and they will listen. I will take [...]
Red Queen's War #3
Score: 100
Our rating: 9.9 | 1 positive reader reviews
All the horrors of Hell stand between Snorri Ver Snagason and the rescue of his family, if indeed the dead can be rescued. For Jalan Kendeth getting back out alive and with Loki's Key is all that matters. Loki's creation can open any lock, any door, and it may also be the key to Jal's [...]
Score: 100
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England’s legendary hero, King Arthur.The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be re [...]
Legends of the First Empire #3
Score: 100
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The alliance of humans and renegade Fhrey is fragile - and about to be tested as never before. Persephone keeps the human clans from turning on one another through her iron will and a compassionate heart. The arrogant Fhrey are barely held in check by their leader, Nyphron, who seeks to advance h [...]
The Living Blade: Book 1
Score: 100
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Is the Living Blade real or just a legend? With it... Prince Bashan could win back his kingdom. Master Telen Diaz can free himself of the burden from his past. Owen Smith sees a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain untold knowledge... but for Noraya Smith, the Living Blade will bring nothing but suf [...]
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: Book 4
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.6 | 2 positive reader reviews
Four thousand years have passed since Covenant first freed the Land from the devastating grip of Lord Foul and his minions. But he is back, and Covenant, armed with his stunning white gold magic, must battle the evil forces and his own despair... [...]
Shadowmarch Quartet: Book 2
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Darkness has fallen on the lands of the sun as an army of misshapen fey spill out from beyond the Shadowline. At their head is Yasammez, dark creature of nightmare. A furtive bargain was struck at the gates of Southmarch and the castle was spared, but centuries of enmity will not be so easily app [...]
Broken Empire: Book 2
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.7 | 1 positive reader reviews
To reach greatness you must step on bodies, and many brothers lie trodden in my wake. I’ve walked from pawn to player and I’ll win this game of ours, though the cost of it may drown the world in blood... The land burns with the fires of a hundred battles as lords and petty kings fight [...]
Book of the Ancestor #1
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.5 | 4 positive reader reviews
At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blad [...]
The Nevernight Chronicle: Book 1
Score: 98
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Nevernight is the first in an epic new fantasy series from the New York Times bestselling author, Jay Kristoff.In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.Da [...]
Legends of the First Empire: Book 6
Score: 98
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
After obtaining the secret to creating dragons, the leader of the Fhrey has turned the tide of war once more - but gaining the advantage has come at a terrible price. While Imaly plots to overthrow the fane for transgressions against his people, a mystic and a Keeper are the only hope for the Rhu [...]
The Broken Earth: Book 3
Score: 98
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every outcast child can grow up safe. [...]
The First Law: Book 2
Score: 97
Our rating: 8.9 | 6 positive reader reviews
Bitter and merciless war is coming to the frozen north. It's bloody and dangerous and the Union army, split by politics and hamstrung by incompetence, is utterly unprepared for the slaughter that's coming. Lacking experience, training, and in some cases even weapons the army is scarcely e [...]
The Immortals Trilogy: Book 3
Score: 97
Our rating: 8.5 | 12 positive reader reviews
The depravity and debauchery of the Demon Lord Zadus, is pitted against the cunning sexuality of Ore'arn, gifted enchantress of the gods, as she and Sirus orchestrate the final battle on the world of Sansinus. Those weilding ancient and powerful magic are drawn together to aid Ore'arn and [...]
Elves Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.7 | 0 positive reader reviews
The elves have fled to Calius, seeking to escape the overwhelming power of the demonic Garonin. A desperate last stand in their own dimension saved the race, at the cost of 100,000 elves lost to the Garonin. The elf who led that fight, Takaar, is blamed for the losses and has gone into hiding. No [...]
The Inheritance Trilogy: Book 2
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.7 | 1 positive reader reviews
In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a strange homeless man on an impulse. This act of kindness engulfs Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, [...]
The Macht: Book 2
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.7 | 0 positive reader reviews
It is twenty-three years since a Macht army fought its way home from the heart of the Asurian Empire. The man who came to lead that army, Rictus, is now a hard-bitten mercenary captain, middle-aged and tired. He wants nothing more than to lay down his spear and become the farmer that his father w [...]
Shadow Ops series: Book 1
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.4 | 3 positive reader reviews
Army Officer. Fugitive. Sorcerer. Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze. Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the mili [...]
The Wounded Kingdom #3
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.7 | 0 positive reader reviews
THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING . . .Many years of peace have passed in Maniyadoc, years of relative calm for the assassin Girton Club-Foot. Even the Forgetting Plague, which ravaged the rest of the kingdoms, seemed to pass them by. But now Rufra ap Vthyr eyes the vacant High-Kin [...]
The Age of Madness: Book 1
Score: 97
Our rating: 9.8 | 1 positive reader reviews
War. Politics. Revolution. The Age of Madness has arrived... The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever. On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield, and defeat the maraud [...]
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: Book 3
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.2 | 1 positive reader reviews
Twice before Thomas Covenant had been summoned to the strange other-world where magic worked. Twice before he had been forced to join with the Lords of Revelstone in their war against Lord Foul, the ancient enemy of the Land. Now he was back. This time the Lords of Revelstone were desperate. With [...]
The Immortals Trilogy: Book 2
Score: 96
Our rating: 8.5 | 11 positive reader reviews
Betrayal, intrigue, lies and death stalk those who guard young Sirus and Ore'arn as they seek to discove the truth.. As the battle for supremacy begins in earnest, and Asserian begins to crumble under the evil infiltrating the land, the master of the Dark Forces rises...There is no place to h [...]
The Rigante Novels: Book 3
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.5 | 1 positive reader reviews
The proud Rigante are an oppressed people. Their days of glory hundreds of years in the past, they know are forced to bow their heads to the Varlish, who do everything to make the Rigante feel inferior. The Varlish profess they’re a noble and pure race, but traces of these virtues are almos [...]
Legends of the Red Sun: Book 2
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the frozen north of a far-flung world lies Villiren, a city plagued by violent gangs and monstrous human/animal hybrids, stalked by a serial killer, and targeted by an otherworldly army. Brynd Lathraea has brought his elite Night Guard to help Villiren build a fighting force against the invade [...]
Oversight Trilogy #1
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.5 | 1 positive reader reviews
Only five still guard the borders between the worlds. Only five hold back what waits on the other side. Once the Oversight, the secret society that polices the lines between the mundane and the magic, counted hundreds of brave souls among its members. Now their number can be tallied on a single h [...]
Raven's Shadow: Book 3
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.5 | 3 positive reader reviews
Queen Lyrna has survived the bloody siege of Alltor. Now she must rally her troops and take back the capital from the Volarian invaders. But driving her hated enemy out of the Realm will not satisfy her lust for vengeance - she wants to pursue them across the ocean and burn their empire to ashes. [...]
The Dark Gifts Trilogy #2
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
A corrupted city. A dark dream of power. Luke is a prisoner, condemned for a murder he didn’t commit. Abi is a fugitive, desperate to free him before magic breaks his mind. But as the Jardines tighten their grip on a turbulent Britain, brother and sister face a fight greater than their own. [...]
The Grave of Empires: Book 1
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.5 | 1 positive reader reviews
Among humans, none have power like mages. And among mages, none have will like Sal the Cacophony. Once revered, now vagrant, she walks a wasteland scarred by generations of magical warfare.The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, is where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldi [...]
The Ascendants of Estorea: Book 1
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Estorean Conquord has stood for 850 years. Its Advocate, Herine Del Aglios, knows that she presides over the greatest civilisation in history. But she wants more. And in Estorea's recently conquered territories dissent is brewing. Forced to fight old friends and neighbours in the cause of [...]
The Macht: Book 1
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
10,000 elite mercenaries of a legendary race known as the Macht are hired by an Empire exile to take the throne by force. But when their employer is killed, and they are surrounded by Empire armies, the 10,000 find themselves abandoned. This is the story of their fight for freedom. [...]
Monarchies of God: Book 1
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
As the once great Fimbrian nations of the West begin to fall to heathen Murduk hordes, bloody religious fanaticism threatens to consume the land from within, and rogue mariner Richard Hawkwood embarks on an expedition across the Great Western Ocean to find a legendary lost continent and a safe sa [...]
The Legend of Eli Monpress: Book 3
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
With the pressure on after his success in Gaol, Eli Monpress, professional thief and degenerate, decides it's time to lie low for a bit. Taking up residence in a tiny seaside village, Eli and his companions seize the chance for some fun and relaxation. Nico, however, is finding it a bit hard. [...]
Shadow Ops series: Book 2
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began to develop terrifying powers - summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Overnight the rules changed… but not for everyone. Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an arm [...]
Shadow Ops series: Book 3
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Great Reawakening has left Latent people with a stark choice: either use their newfound magical powers in the service of the government, or choose the path of the Selfer, and be hunted down and killed by the Supernatural Operations Corps. For Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson ' call sign Ha [...]
Red Queen's War #2
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Red Queen has set her players on the board… Winter is keeping Prince Jalan Kendeth far from the luxuries of his southern palace. And although the North may be home to his companion, the warrior Snorri ver Snagason, he is just as eager to leave. For the Viking is ready to challenge all [...]
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatu [...]
The Witcher #5
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup and, in the uproar, Geralt was seriously injured. The Witcher is supposed to be a guardian of the innocent, a protector of those in need, a defender against powerful and dangerous monsters that prey on men in dark times.But now that dark [...]
Book of the Ancestor #3
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
Nona Grey’s story reaches its shattering conclusion in the third instalment of Book of the Ancestor.THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WOMAN.The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durn [...]
Fantasy books that contain mature themes
Secondary world with epic characters, themes, and plot
Fantasy books where the use of magic is integral
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