Best historical fantasy books

Historical fantasy takes a period of history from this world's past and introduces fantasy elements to it. Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world.

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
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 [...]

2. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Score: 201
Our rating: 9.7 | 9 positive reader reviews
Set in a beleaguered land caught in a web of tyranny, Tigana is the deeply moving story of a people struggling to be free. A people so cursed by the dark sorceries of the tyrant King Brandin that even the very name of their once beautiful land cannot be spoken or remembered. But not everyone [...]

3. A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay
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 [...]

4. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
Score: 193
Our rating: 9.7 | 1 positive reader reviews
For two years Shen Tai has mourned his father, living like a hermit beyond the borders of the Kitan Empire, by a mountain lake where terrible battles have long been fought between the Kitai and the neighbouring Tagurans, including one for which his father - a great general - was honoured. But Tai [...]

5. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Score: 190
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed, Alaska - and not Israel - had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II? In Michael Chabon's Yiddish-speaking 'Alyeska', Orthodox gangs in side-curls and knee breeches roam the streets of Sitka, where Detective Meyer Landsman dis [...]

6. The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin
Dreamblood duology: Book 1
Score: 185
Our rating: 9.3 | 1 positive reader reviews
In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers - the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe… a [...]

7. The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N McIntyre
Score: 184
Our rating: 9.3 | 0 positive reader reviews
Louis XIV, the Sun King, rules the Western World from the Chateau at Versailles. Marie- Josèphe de la Croix looks forward to assisting her brother in the scientific study of the rare sea monsters the king has commissioned him to seek. The living sea monster, with its double tail, tangled h [...]

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Score: 184
Our rating: 9.3 | 0 positive reader reviews
It is 1939. In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier - and will become busier still.By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, an [...]

9. Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Sarantine Mosaic #1
Score: 174
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Rumoured to be responsible for the ascension of the previous Emperor, his uncle, amid fire and blood, Valerius the Trakesian has himself now risen to the Golden Throne of the vast empire ruled by the fabled city, Sarantium. Valerius has a vision to match his ambition: a glittering dome that will [...]

10. Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Legacy: Book 1
Score: 161
Our rating: 8.0 | 3 positive reader reviews
Sold into indentured servitude at the exotic Night Court as a child, Phedre no Delaunay, faces a difficult choice between honor and duty as she deals with a world of glittering luxury, conspiracy, sacrifice, and betrayal and plays a key role in protecting her land from a dangerously clever a [...]

11. Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
Score: 140
Our rating: 7.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
It is a world like our own in every respect . . . save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There’s [...]

12. The Thief by Claire North
Gamehouse #2
Score: 100
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Gameshouse is an unusual institution. Many know it as the place where fortunes can be made and lost through games of Chess, Backgammon - every game under the sun. But a select few, who are picked to compete in the higher league, know that some games are played for higher stakes - those of pol [...]

13. The Deverry Cycle by Katharine Kerr
The Deverry Cycle
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.1 | 7 positive reader reviews
In a world outside reality, a young girl's spirit hovers between incarnations, knowing neither her past nor her future. In the temporal world lives Nevyn, who long ago vanquished the maiden's hand in marriage and forged a terrible bond between three souls. Now he must atone the wrong of h [...]

14. Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
Score: 98
Our rating: 9.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
The year is 1939. Raybould Marsh and other members of British Intelligence have gathered to watch a damaged reel of film in a darkened room. It appears to show German troops walking through walls, bursting into flames and hurling tanks into the air from afar. If the British are to believe their e [...]

15. The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow
Score: 98
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the late 1800s, three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in Alix E. Harrow's powerful novel of magic and the suffragette movement.In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, b [...]

16. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan
The Radiant Emperor: Book 1
Score: 98
Our rating: 10.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In Mongol-occupied imperial China, a peasant girl refuses her fate of an early death. Stealing her dead brother’s identity to survive, she rises from monk to soldier, then to rebel commander. Zhu’s pursuing the destiny her brother somehow failed to attain: greatness. But all the while [...]

17. Blood Of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
The Witcher #3
Score: 96
Our rating: 8.3 | 13 positive reader reviews
For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changes, and now the races once again fight each other - and themselves. In this tumultuous time a child is born - Ciri has strange powers and a stranger destiny, for a prophecy names [...]

18. Cold Fire by Kate Elliott
Spiritwalker: Book 2
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Cat and her cousin are key players in a drama of dragons and politics. Everyone wants something from them - including the warlord who's conquering all Europa and the Cold Mages who dare defy him. But the Master of the Wild Hunt is most dangerous of all. He will command Cat's loyalty using [...]

19. Hats off to Brandenburg by Graham Thomas
Score: 96
Our rating: 9.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
London, 1815 – The Roxy Playhouse is in trouble! The Roxy Playhouse Irregulars, those libertine artists and dreamers, are up to their necks in debt – “Pay up in one month or its curtains for you all.” Dark times lead to drastic schemes and so the Irregulars decide to reinv [...]

20. Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.1 | 4 positive reader reviews
Who or what is Endymion Spring? A power for good, or for evil... A legendary book that holds the secret to a world of knowledge... A young boy without a voice - whose five-hundred-year-old story is about to explode in the twenty-first century... Set in present-day Oxford and Germany at the dawn o [...]

21. Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the winter of his eleventh year, Little Hawk goes deep into the forest, where he must endure a three-month test of solitude and survival which will turn him into a man. But outside the woods, the world is changing. English settlers are landing on the shores of the New World, and tensions betwe [...]

22. The Serpent by Claire North
Gamehouse #1
Score: 95
Our rating: 9.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
In seventeenth century Venice exists a mysterious establishment known only as the Gameshouse. There, fortunes are made and fortunes are broken over games of chess, backgammon and every other game under the sun. But those whom fortune favours may be invited to compete in the higher league...  [...]

23. Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Score: 93
Our rating: 9.3 | 0 positive reader reviews
Come one come all to greatest city in the world. In London, all men are free, the streets are lined with gold and the naughty ladies are friendly to all. In London there are geezers on ever street corner and every urchin and tosher is an angel with a dirty face. Home to Her Majesty, Fleet Street, [...]

24. The War at Troy by Lindsay Clarke
Score: 93
Our rating: 9.2 | 1 positive reader reviews
The people who lived in those days were closer to gods than we are, and great deeds and marvels were commoner then, which is why the stories we have from them are nobler and richer than our own. So that those stories should not pass from the earth, I have decided to set down everything I know of [...]

25. The Shadowed Sun by NK Jemisin
Dreamblood duology: Book 2
Score: 92
Our rating: 9.2 | 0 positive reader reviews
Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares: a mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. T [...]

26. The Hanged Man by KD Edwards
The Tarot Sequence: Book 2
Score: 92
Our rating: 9.2 | 0 positive reader reviews
The last member of a murdered House tries to protect his ward from forced marriage to a monster while uncovering clues to his own tortured past. The Tarot Sequence imagines a modern-day Atlantis off the coast of Massachusetts, governed by powerful Courts based on the traditional Tarot deck. Rune [...]

27. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Score: 91
Our rating: 8.9 | 2 positive reader reviews
On a dark road in the middle of the night, a car plunges into a ravine. The driver survives the crash, but his injuries confine him to a hospital burn unit. There the mysterious Marianne Engel, a sculptress of grotesques, enters his life. She insists they were lovers in medieval Germany, when he [...]

28. The Skystone by Jack Whyte
The Camulod Chronicles: Book 1
Score: 91
Our rating: 9.1 | 0 positive reader reviews
Publius Varrus is the last legionnaire in Britain, and The Skystone is in many ways his story. He is a common man with aristocratic friends, and successful both as a soldier and an ironsmith. As the Roman world slowly crumbles around them, and Publius becomes involved in a political and personal [...]

29. Son of the Morning by Mark Alder
Score: 91
Our rating: 9.0 | 1 positive reader reviews
Edward the Third stands in the burnt ruin of an English church. He is beset on all sides. He needs a victory against the French to rescue his Kingship. Or he will die trying. Philip of Valois can put 50,000 men in the field. He has sent his priests to summon the very Angels themselves to fight fo [...]

30. The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier
Bridei Chronicles: Book 1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
When Bridei arrives at Pitnochie as a four-year-old, Juliet Marillier lets the reader see the unsure thoughts of the druid Broichan who will mentor and educate him. We get to wonder if this little child will be able to handle all that Broichan has planned for him. The mystery piles on from there. [...]

31. Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
Treason�s Heir: Book 1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the darkness their will always be light. In Phedre’s journey to save the land she loved so dearly and free her friend from a curse proved to be more than Phedre had envisioned. Melisande still lurks around the corners, but Imriel de la Courcels is the only one who can bring the memory of [...]

32. Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
Treason�s Heir: Book 2
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Imriel is torn between escaping his past and creating his future. The memory of his mother’s betrayal still lingers in his memory and his life. Imriel has faced many dangers in his young life, and the one he faces now doesn’t fall short. [...]

33. Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
Spiritwalker: Book 1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 2 positive reader reviews
As they approach adulthood, Cat Barahal and her cousin Bee think they understand the society they live in and their place within it. At a select academy they study new airship technologies and the dawning Industrial Revolution, but magical forces still rule. And the cousins are about to discover [...]

34. Land of Hope and Glory by Geoffrey Wilson
The Land of Hope and Glory series #1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
It is 1852. The Indian empire of Rajthana has ruled Europe for more than a hundred years. With their vast armies, steam-and-sorcery technology and mastery of the mysterious power of sattva, the Rajthanans appear invincible. But a bloody rebellion has broken out in a remote corner of the empire, i [...]

35. One Hundred Years of Vicissitude by Andrez Bergen
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
"First up, a disclaimer. I suspect I am a dead man. I have meagre proof, no framed- up certification, nothing to toss in a court of law as evidence of a rapid departure from the mortal coil. I recall a gun was involved, pressed up against my skull, and a loud explosion followed." Thus b [...]

36. Dreaming Of Zhou Gong by Traci Harding
Time Keeper Trilogy #1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Wu have been living in isolation for decades while the Shang Emperor and his enchantress have ruled the land. It has been a terrible time for the common people and the noble Ji brothers are keen to bring the emperor′s arrogant bloodthirsty reign to an end. They believe an ancient prophe [...]

37. Those Poor, Poor Bastards by Tim Marquitz
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The year is 1868... In the Sierra Nevada, during the expansion of the Central Pacific Railroad, Nina Weaver and her pa, Lincoln, trundle into Coburn Station with a wagonful of goods they're looking to barter. Of all the rotten luck, their world—and the future of the American West— [...]

38. The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick
The Erebus Sequence #1
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Lucien de Fontein has grown up different. One of the mysterious and misshapen Orfano who appear around the Kingdom of Landfall, he is a talented fighter yet constantly lonely, tormented by his deformity, and well aware that he is a mere pawn in a political game. Ruled by an insane King and the ve [...]

39. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
This is the antithesis of pure pabulum, it reaches out to those readers both clerisy and avid; we turn the final page realising our empathy with the vicissitudes of Renzo and Lucia, becoming sympathetic with their emotions. The sedulous nature of their journey from separation to reunification is [...]

40. The Boy Who Wept Blood by Den Patrick
The Erebus Sequence #2
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Ten years have passed since the disappearance of Lucien and his protégé, the young swordsman Dino, is struggling to live up to Lucien's legacy. Sworn to protect the silent queen Anea as she struggles to bring a new democracy to Demesne, Dino finds himself drawn into a deadly gam [...]

41. The Master by Claire North
Gamehouse #3
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The Gamehouse is an unusual institution. Many know it as the place where fortunes can be made and lost through games of Chess, Backgammon - every game under the sun. But a select few, who are picked to compete in the higher league, know that some games are played for higher stakes - those of poli [...]

42. Touch by Claire North
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Kepler is like you, but not like you. With a simple touch, Kepler can move into any body, live any life - for a moment, a day or for years. And your life could be next. SOME PEOPLE TOUCH LIVES. OTHERS TAKE THEM. I DO BOTH. [...]

43. Tyrant's Throne by Sebastien de Castell
The Greatcoats #4
Score: 90
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats, is on the brink of fulfilling his dead King's dream: Aline is about to take the throne and restore the rule of law once and for all. But for the Greatcoats, nothing is ever that simple. In neighbouring Avares, an enigmatic new warlord is unitin [...]

44. Illumination by Karen Brooks
The Curse of the Bond Riders: Book 3
Score: 89
Our rating: 8.9 | 0 positive reader reviews
Talented candlemaker. Intoxicating courtesan. Lethal assassin. Can Tallow become what she has always denied . . . or is it too late? Against a backdrop of bloodshed and turmoil, Tallow flees the cunning Maleovellis and a city on the brink of war to enter the Limen, determined to find the Estratto [...]

45. The Place of Dead Kings by Geoffrey Wilson
The Land of Hope and Glory series #2
Score: 89
Our rating: 8.9 | 0 positive reader reviews
It is 1855. The English revolt has failed, and brutal General Vadula governs England now. Only a few small bands of English rebels still hold out against the Rajthanan empire. Jack Casey survives in remote Shropshire, training young rebels to use the conqueror's magic, but he is gravely ill, [...]

46. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
The Sevenwaters Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 89
Our rating: 9.1 | 0 positive reader reviews
The keep at Sevenwaters is a remote, strange, quiet place, guarded by silent men who slip through the woodlands clothed in grey, and keep their weapons sharp. For there are invaders outside the forest; raiders from across the seas, Britons and Vikings bent on destruction. But now there is also an [...]

47. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Legacy: Book 2
Score: 88
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Phèdre has been trained as a skilled spy, courtesan and strategist under her tutor's watchful eye. He was the first to see she'd been touched by the god Kushiel's dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one. And above all, Phèdre was taught to observe, re [...]

48. Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Legacy: Book 3
Score: 88
Our rating: 9.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
With the help from old and new friends, Phedre’s final quest tests her scarlet mote beyond measure. Once at the Queens mercy, now the Queens right hand in defeating the evil that threatens Terre d’Ange, Phedre’s skills as a courtesan and Kushiel’s Chosen prove to be a form [...]

49. The Scar-Crow Men by Mark Chadbourn
Sword of Albion: Book 2
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
After his friend Kit Marlow is killed in a pub brawl, Will Swyfte makes it his mission to track down the killer and uncover the mysterious circumstances surrounding the playwright’s death. With the plague ravaging London and the Unseelie Court poised to strike their most vital blow yet, Swy [...]

50. Votive by Karen Brooks
The Curse of the Bond Riders: Book 2
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
La Serenissima - a beautiful but deadly city where corrupt aristocrats rule and everything, including love, has a price. Tallow is anything but a simple candlemaker and when she has everything taken away from her - friends, family, hope - all she can do to survive is rely on the Maleovellis. Cast [...]

51. The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer
Wold Newton Novels
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
About a hundred years ago, a group of mutant supermen began playing a major role in our affairs. It is no accident that Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Nemo, and Doc Savage were (are?) contemporaries. Nor was it accidental that their biographers titillated their public with hints of their true n [...]

52. The High King of Montival by SM Stirling
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Rudi Mackenzie has returned to Montival with the Sword of the Lady, ready to face the legions of the Prophet. To achieve victory, Rudi must assemble a coalition of former enemies and forge an army that will rescue his homeland and tear the heart out of the Church Universal and Triumphant once and [...]

53. Spooks: Alice by Joseph Delaney
The Wardstone Chronicles: Book 12
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
A lot of dark stuff happened when I was young that I’ve never even told to my dearest friend, Tom Ward. Dark and scary things I hoped I had left behind forever... [...]

54. Bloodrush by Ben Galley
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
"Magick ain’t pretty, it ain’t stars and sparkles. Magick is dirty. It’s rough. Raw. It’s blood and guts and vomit. You hear me?" When Prime Lord Hark is found in a pool of his own blood on the steps of his halls, Tonmerion Hark finds his world not only turned up [...]

55. The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Edinburgh, 1874. On the coldest night the world has ever seen, Little Jack is born with a frozen heart and immediately undergoes a life-saving operation. But Dr Madeleine is no conventional medic and surgically implants a cuckoo-clock into his chest. Little Jack grows up different to other childr [...]

56. The Last Sun by KD Edwards
NAThe Tarot Sequence: Book 1
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Rune Saint John, last child of the fallen Sun Court, is hired to search for Lady Judgment's missing son, Addam, on New Atlantis, the island city where the Atlanteans moved after ordinary humans destroyed their original home. With his companion and bodyguard, Brand, he questions Addam's re [...]

57. The Half Killed by Quenby Olson
Sundered Veil: Book 1
Score: 88
Our rating: 8.8 | 0 positive reader reviews
Dorothea Hawes has no wish to renew contact with what lies beyond the veil. After an attempt to take her own life, she has retired into seclusion, but as the wounds on her body heal, she is drawn back into a world she wants nothing more than to avoid.She is sought out by Julian Chissick, a [...]

58. The Heresy of Dr Dee by Phil Rickman
John Dee Papers: Book 2
Score: 87
Our rating: 8.7 | 0 positive reader reviews
All talk is of the End-time... and the dead are rising. At the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted [...]

59. Dragon Horse by Peter Ward
Score: 86
Our rating: 8.5 | 1 positive reader reviews
The horse of Heaven has come, Mediator for the dragon. He travels to the Gate of Heaven. And looks on the Terrace of Jade. Aeons ago, winged dragons spread terror across the Chinese empire. Their descendants, magnificent horses bred and ridden by the Wild Horsemen, are known as dragon horses. But [...]

60. Interregnum by SJA Turney
Score: 86
Our rating: 8.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
For twenty years civil war has torn the Empire apart; the Imperial line extinguished as the mad Emperor Quintus burned in his palace, betrayed by his greatest general. Against a background of war, decay, poverty and violence, men who once served in the proud Imperial army now fight as mercenaries [...]

61. Brotherband: The Outcasts by John Flanagan
Score: 86
Our rating: 8.5 | 3 positive reader reviews
They are outcasts. Hal, Stig, and the others - they are the boys the others want no part of. Skandians, as any reader of Ranger's Apprentice could tell you, are known for their size and strength. Not these boys. Yet that doesn't mean they don't have skills. And courage - which they wi [...]

62. Circus Maximus by Damian Dibben
The History Keepers: Book 2
Score: 86
Our rating: 8.6 | 0 positive reader reviews
The History Keepers are in terrible danger once more. Stocks of Atomium - the crucial ingredient which allows them to travel through time - are perilously low, and the agents must embark on a risky mission to find more. And now a new and even more evil member of the Zeldt family is planning a hid [...]

63. The Midnight Charter by David Whitley
The Agora Trilogy: Book 1
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the city of Agora, anything can be bought and sold. Even children are possessions until their twelfth birthday. Mark has been sold by his father, and Lily, an orphan from birth, has bartered for her life. Thrown together by chance, in the ancient tower of Count Stelli, they face an existence o [...]

64. Wickedness by Deborah White
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
One day - whilst reading that Samuel Pepys had once been to see an Egyptian mummy on show at the Head and Combe Inn on the Strand - Deborah White found herself with the seed of an idea for a story. The seed slowly germinated into her soon to be published debut novel, Wickedness, the story of two [...]

65. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
The Infernal Devices: Book 2
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on [...]

66. Demon Gate by Mike Cannon
Grey King Saga: Book 1
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Hikaru is a warrior born from betrayal at the time of the warrior clans' greatest peril. With the magic of the Imperial Court fading the Isles have become a dangerous place. Arise the ancient warrior clans, the warrior-born. For generations the warrior-born have sacrificed themselves against [...]

67. Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Temeraire series: Book 1
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just twelve years old; finding a warmer berth in Nelson's navy than any he enjoyed as the youngest, least important son of Lord Allendale. Rising on merit to captain his own vessel, Laurence has earned himself a beautiful fiancée, soci [...]

68. Sugar Glass by Pip Janssen
Tales of Vertiga #2
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
A chance encounter in the streets of Corenth reveals that Roan Palion bears the magelight, and opens his eyes to the power and beauty of magic. His only link to his old life is his twin sister Lia, but she is discovering a wider world of her own. Lia is offered the chance to train in the art of t [...]

69. The Dead Assassin by Vaughn Entwistle
The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle #2
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Arthur Conan Doyle is summoned to the scene of a gruesome crime. A politician has been assassinated and his attacker’s body is riddled with bullets. More perplexing, the dead assassin is discovered to have been hanged two weeks previously. Conan Doyle calls in his friend Oscar Wilde and the [...]

70. Clash of Eagles by Alan Smales
The Clash of Eagles Trilogy #1
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
Imagine a world where the Roman Empire never fell... In AD 1218, Praetor Gaius Marcellinus, commander of the 33rd Legion, invades Nova Hesperia, a land inhabited by Powhatani, Iroqua and Cahokiani. In search of gold, he and his men find only death. Marcellinus is taken prisoner, but his life is s [...]

71. The Risen by Tarn Richardson
The Darkest Hand #3
Score: 85
Our rating: 8.5 | 0 positive reader reviews
1917. As war and revolution consume the world, the End Times have arrived. With the apocalypse imminent, the world needs a hero to push back this tide of darkness and save all from the return of the Antichrist. But where is Poldek Tacit, the only Inquisitor able to compete against such daunting o [...]

72. The Children of the Lost by David Whitley
The Agora Trilogy: Book 2
Score: 84
Our rating: 8.4 | 0 positive reader reviews
Mark and Lily have been banished from Agora, the ancient city-state where everything is for sale – memories, emotions – even children. Lost and alone they discover Giseth, a seemingly perfect land where everyone is equal, possessions are unknown, and Lily believes they will find the s [...]

73. The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Score: 83
Our rating: 8.3 | 2 positive reader reviews
The ruling Asharites of Al-Rassan have come from the desert sands, but over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, their stern piety has eroded. The Asharite Empire has splintered into decadent city-states lead by warring petty kings. King Almalik of Cartada is on the asc [...]

74. The Storm Begins by Damian Dibben
The History Keepers: Book 1
Score: 82
Our rating: 8.2 | 0 positive reader reviews
Imagine if you lost your parents - not just in place, but in time. Jake Djones' mum and dad have gone missing and they could be anywhere in the world - at any time in history. Because the Djones family have an astonishing secret, which for years they've managed to keep - even from each ot [...]

75. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
Score: 82
Our rating: 8.0 | 2 positive reader reviews
Joel is fascinated by the magical art of Rithmatics, but unfortunately only a chosen few have the necessary gift and Joel is not one of them. Undaunted, Joel persuades Professor Fitch to teach him Rithmatic theory - and soon finds that his knowledge is put to the test when someone starts murderin [...]

76. The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
Score: 81
Our rating: 8.1 | 0 positive reader reviews
Following the enormous success of 2004 bestseller and critics' favorite "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell", Susanna Clarke delivers a delicious collection of ten stories set in the same fairy-crossed world of 19th-century England. With Clarke's characteristic historical detail [...]

77. The Well of Shades by Juliet Marillier
Bridei Chronicles: Book 3
Score: 81
Our rating: 8.0 | 1 positive reader reviews
Sent home to Ireland on a secret mission for King Bridei of Fortriu, Faolan must first deliver the news of a brave warrior's death. Unexpectedly Bridei's chief assassin and spy also finds himself facing the demons of his family's dark past. By the time he tracks down the powerful Chri [...]

78. Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
The Greatcoats #1
Score: 81
Our rating: 8.0 | 1 positive reader reviews
Falcio is the first Cantor of the Greatcoats. Trained in the fighting arts and the laws of Tristia, the Greatcoats are travelling Magisters upholding King’s Law. They are heroes. Or at least they were, until they stood aside while the Dukes took the kingdom, and impaled their King’s h [...]

79. Blade of Fortriu by Juliet Marillier
Bridei Chronicles: Book 2
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The kingdom of Fortriu has enjoyed five years of peace since Bridei came to the throne. Now the king is preparing for the long-awaited war that he hopes will see the Gaelic invaders driven from the west forever. The princess Ana, a hostage of Fortriu since childhood, is sent north to make a strat [...]

80. Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
Treason's Heir: Book 3
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The final destination of self-discovery brings the greatest heartache for our dear Imriel. The marriage to the young Alban Princess brought him great joy and the soon to be birth of his son, gave Imriel joy he could not suppress, he did love his Alban Princess, but the memory of Sidone still haun [...]

81. The Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
On the banks of the ageless Nile, from a palace of gold and lapis lazuli, the young Caliph rules as a figurehead over a crumbling empire. Cairo is awash in deception. In the shadow of the Gray Mosque, generals and emirs jockey for position under the scheming eyes of the powerful grand vizier. Egy [...]

82. Lord Oda's Revenge by Nick Lake
Blood Ninja series: Book 2
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Japan, 1566Taro is a Blood Ninja, a silent assassin trained in the arts of death but doomed to live on the blood of others. He has killed his mortal foe: Lord Oda.But Lord Oda is not quiet in his grave. He has found a way to reach beyond death. He will have his revenge.Taro w [...]

83. Taft 2012 by Jason Heller
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
William Howard Taft, 27th president of the United States of America. He was a large and imposing figure who ran the USA from 1909 to 1913. Just under one hundred years later he unexpectedly returns to life and politics. His personality is larger than life and he not only has to deal with modern l [...]

84. Turn The Tides Gently by Matt Wingett
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
A young man encounters what he thinks is a mermaid living in the seas around the island city of Portsmouth. Is he going mad? Or is his encounter set to change his world in ways he never expected? This tale of transformation tells his compelling story with deftness of touch and warmth of heart.&nb [...]

85. Revelations by Daniel Diehl
The Merlin Chronicles #1
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Merlin the magician only exists in myth and legend - at least that is what archaeology student Jason Carpenter thought until he discovered the mysterious orb that housed history's greatest wizard for 1,600 years. Forced into an uneasy alliance, Jason and Merlin are sucked into a web of deceit [...]

86. Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell
The Greatcoats #2
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Tristia is a nation overcome by intrigue and corruption. The idealistic young King Paelis is dead and the Greatcoats - legendary travelling magistrates who brought justice to the Kingdom - have been branded as traitors. But just before his head was impaled on a spike, the King swore each of his h [...]

87. Darkness Visible by Pip Janssen

Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In an alternate version of London in 1895, a few talented people can travel instantly between locations through Thresholds - tears in the fabric of reality. Lord Henry Lewis is a Warden, working to close dangerous Thresholds to prevent the sickness that flows from the darkness outside reality. Wi [...]

88. The Red Mage by Pip Janssen
Tales of Vertiga #1
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Nineteen year-old Evie Moon wears red ribbons, and everyone in Verenth knows their meaning. Evie expects nothing more from life than the struggle against hunger, violence, and unfortunate diseases, until a chance encounter with a Leaf changes her world forever. Leaves are inherently magical, and [...]

89. The Suicide Exhibition by Justin Richards
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Wewelsburg Castle, 1940. The German war machine has woken an ancient threat - the alien Vril and their Ubermensch have returned. Ultimate victory in the war for Europe is now within the Nazis' grasp. England, 1941. Foreign Office trouble shooter Guy Pentecross has stumbled into a conspiracy b [...]

90. Uprising by Sarah Cawkwell
Heirs of the Demon King #1
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Mathias Eynon’s dreams were small. A dabbler in magic, he expected to live in obscurity in his home in the Welsh hills. But fate has other plans for him. It is the Year of Our Lord Fifteen Eighty-Nine, and a revolution is quietly brewing. Richard the Fifth has overstayed his rule, some say; [...]

91. The House of War and Witness by Mike Linda and Louise Carey
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
In the year 1740, with the whole of Europe balanced on the brink of war, a company of Austrian soldiers is sent to the village of Narutsin to defend the border with Prussia. But what should be a routine posting is quickly revealed to be anything but. The previous garrison is gone, the great house [...]

92. The Damned by Tarn Richardson
The Darkest Hand #1
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
1914. The outbreak of war. In the French city of Arras, a priest is brutally murdered. The Catholic Inquisition - still powerful, but now working in the shadows - sends its most determined and unhinged of Inquisitors, Poldek Tacit, to investigate: his mission to protect the Church from those who [...]

93. The Silver Mask by Christian Ellingsen
The Vasini Chronicles #1
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
The gods and goddesses are dead, killed two hundred years ago. With their destruction the moon split apart, the sun dwindled and the land was devastated. Civilisation has re-emerged from the carnage, but twisted creatures still prowl the savage Wildlands between the city-states. In the skies abov [...]

94. The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Captivating and boldly imaginative, with a tale of sisterhood at its heart, Rena Rossner's debut fantasy invites you to enter a world filled with magic, folklore, and the dangers of the woods.Raised in a small village surrounded by vast forests, Liba and Laya have lived a peaceful [...]

95. The Land You Never Leave by Angus Watson
West of West #2
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Newly and uneasily allied, two tribes from different worlds set off across the Ocean of Grass. Their mission is to fulfil a prophecy and take Ottar the Moaner west of west, to save mankind. In their way are the denizens of the Badlands, the most terrifying and powerful collection of murderers and [...]

96. War Cry by Brian McClellan
Score: 80
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Teado is a Changer, a shape-shifting military asset trained to win wars. His platoon has been stationed in the Bavares high plains for years, stranded. As they ration supplies and scan the airwaves for news, any news, their numbers dwindle. He's not sure how much time they have left. Desperat [...]

97. Spellbound by Margit Sandemo
The Legend of the Ice People: Book 1
Score: 79
Our rating: 7.9 | 0 positive reader reviews
Silje Angrimsdotter's life is turned upside down when the streets of Trondheim on Norway's northern coast are stricken by the plague. It has gripped her village and wiped out her family and she is forced to flee in search of solace. En route she finds companions in two abandoned children, [...]

98. Redoubt by Alexander Janaway
Score: 79
Our rating: 7.5 | 4 positive reader reviews
After a short and bloody war on foreign soil, the Expeditionary Army of Ashkent is preparing to return home. Captain Jon Forge and his company, however, are assigned one more task – to oversee a workforce of enslaved Bantusai tribesmen as rebuild a remote and long-abandoned bridge. With con [...]

99. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
The Infernal Devices: Book 1
Score: 78
Our rating: 7.5 | 3 positive reader reviews
Something terrifying is waiting for Tessa Gray in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Tessa seeks refuge with the Shadowhunters, a band of warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons. Tessa finds herself fascinated by &nda [...]

100. Age of Myth by Michael J Sullivan
Legends of the First Empire #1
Score: 78
Our rating: 8.0 | 0 positive reader reviews
Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans and those they thought were gods changes forever. Now only a few s [...]