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- The Hobbit
series2 books1937
completed
part of Tolkien's legendarium
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The Hobbit (1937) is J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel following the reluctant burglar Bilbo Baggins, who joins a company of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf on a journey to reclaim treasure guarded by the dragon Smaug. It stands as a complete adventure on its own, but shares its setting with the rest of Tolkien's legendarium and leads into the events of The Lord of the Rings.
- So This Is Ever After
F. T. Lukensstandalone novel2022
similar byfound familyfantasylightheartedsecondary worldquestsfunnyhumor
Arek hadn’t thought much about what would happen after he completed the prophecy that said he was destined to save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler. So now that he’s finally managed to (somewhat clumsily) behead the evil king (turns out magical swords yanked from bogs don’t come pre-sharpened), he and his rag-tag group of quest companions are at a bit of a loss for what to do next. As a temporary safeguard, Arek’s best friend and mage, Matt, convinces him to assume the throne until the true heir can be rescued from her tower. Except that she’s dead. Now Arek is stuck as king, a role that comes with a magical catch: choose a spouse by your eighteenth birthday, or wither away into nothing. With his eighteenth birthday only three months away, and only Matt in on the secret, Arek embarks on a desperate bid to find a spouse to save his life—starting with his quest companions. But his attempts at wooing his friends go painfully and hilariously wrong…until he discovers that love might have been in front of him all along.
- Myth Adventures
series33 books1978
similar byfantasysecondary worldfunnyhumor+1 more
MythAdventures or Myth Adventures is a fantasy series created by Robert Lynn Asprin. After twelve novels by Asprin, published 1978 to 2002, he and Jody Lynn Nye continued the series with seven more books that they wrote together. After his death in May 2008, Nye has continued the series on her own.
- Legends & Lattes
series9 books2022
similar byfound familylightheartedfantasysecondary world
Travis Baldree's cozy fantasy series follows Viv, a battle-worn orc mercenary who trades her sword for an apron to open the first coffeehouse in the city of Thune, winning over skeptical customers and a rival guild alike. Bookshops & Bonedust returns to her mercenary days as a prequel, and the series has become a byword for low-stakes fantasy built on found family rather than warfare.
- Enchanted Pilgrimage
Clifford D. Simakstandalone novel1975
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A scholar at a remote university stumbles onto a manuscript that hints at forgotten secrets buried in the Wasteland, a blighted region where magic and monsters still linger at the edge of an otherwise rational world. Setting out to track the manuscript's truth to its source, he gathers a company of odd fellow travelers along the way -- the kind of companions a quest like this tends to attract -- each with their own stake in what they might find. Clifford D. Simak folds his familiar pastoral, faintly melancholy tone into a full-blown fantasy quest, blending scholarly curiosity with old magic. A standalone fantasy novel by Clifford D. Simak.
- Cerulean Chronicles
series2 books2020
similar byfound familyfantasy+2 more
TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea follows Linus Baker, a caseworker for a bureaucratic agency overseeing magical children, sent to investigate an orphanage whose six unusual residents, including the literal antichrist, complicate his usual detachment. Somewhere Beyond the Sea shifts to a new protagonist connected to the same island and its found family. Both books use a gentle, whimsical tone to work through themes of institutional prejudice and belonging.
- Enchanted Forest
series7 books1985
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Patricia Collins Wrede is an American author of fantasy literature. She is known for her Enchanted Forest Chronicles series for young adults, which was voted number 84 in NPR's 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels list.
- Spellsinger
series9 books1983
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Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series follows Jon-Tom, a UCLA law student pulled into a fantasy world by the wizard Clothahump, where he discovers he can cast spells by singing along with his guitar. That world is populated almost entirely by anthropomorphic animals -- otters, rabbits, turtles -- with humans a rare minority, and across eight books published between 1983 and 2004, Jon-Tom and his companions repeatedly clash with the insectoid Plated Folk raiding the western territories.
- Six of Crows
series3 books2015
part of Grishaverse
similar byfound familyfantasysecondary world
Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology (2015-2016) follows a crew of six criminal teenagers in Ketterdam, a city modeled on the Dutch Republic, as they pull off a near-impossible heist and then deal with its fallout. Told from multiple points of view, the books lean on the found-family bond between the crew members as much as the caper plotting, and sit within Bardugo's wider Grishaverse alongside her Shadow and Bone books.
- The Sharing Knife
series5 books2006
similar byfound familyfantasysecondary world
The Sharing Knife is a romance/fantasy series by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold, published in 2006–2019. The original story grew so long in the telling that it was split into two volumes: Beguilement (2006) and Legacy (2007). Bujold then wrote a sequel, which was also divided, into Passage (2008) and Horizon (2009). The original title of the sequel was The Wide Green World, but Bujold and her publisher decided to make "Sharing Knife" the overall title, with the individual books given one-word subtitles and numbered 1–4. The fifth story in the series, a "short novel" titled Knife Children, was released as an electronic book on January 25, 2019.
- Discworld
universe84 books1983
Start hereGuards! Guards! · Start here
similar byfantasysecondary worldfunny+1 more
The Disc is flat. It rides on the backs of four elephants, who in turn stand on the shell of Great A'Tuin, a turtle ten thousand miles long, swimming through space toward nowhere in particular. Magic works here, usually badly. Death speaks IN SMALL CAPITALS and rides a horse called Binky. It looks like a fantasy world and behaves like ours with the safety catch off: a mirror held up to bureaucracy, belief, newspapers, money, war, and the ridiculous, stubborn business of being a person. One hand shaped all of it — Terry Pratchett — across forty-one novels and a shelf of companions, maps, and the Science of Discworld books. The world is braided from strands you can pick up on their own. Rincewind, the cowardly wizard, flees across the Disc (The Colour of Magic). The witches of Lancre, led by the formidable Granny Weatherwax, mind everyone's business (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters). Death takes on an apprentice (Mort). The City Watch polices grimy Ankh-Morpork under Commander Vimes (Guards! Guards!). A reformed swindler is given honest work at swordpoint (Going Postal), and young Tiffany Aching learns witching alongside the tiny, larcenous Nac Mac Feegle (The Wee Free Men). Standalones like Small Gods sit apart. The trick of it is that the farce turns, mid-joke, into something that catches in the throat, with footnotes that argue back at the page. Newcomers are gently steered away from the beginning: the early Rincewind books spoof a genre you needn't have read. Enter instead by whichever strand calls — Guards! Guards! for the Watch, Mort for Death, Wyrd Sisters for the witches, Small Gods entirely alone, or The Wee Free Men for the sharpest single thread. Open any door and the whole Disc opens with it.
- Guardians of Ga'hoole
series17 books2003
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Guardians of Ga'Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic. The series contains a total of 16 books, and although it was originally intended to conclude with the 2008 publication of The War of the Ember, it has a prequel, The Rise of a Legend, published in 2013. Apart from the main series, there are a few more books and spin-offs set in the same universe. The first three books of the series were adapted into the 2010 animated 3D film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, directed by Zack Snyder.
- Circle of Magic (Tamora Pierce)
series4 books1997
part of Circle of Magic
similar byfound familyfantasysecondary world
Four children who don't fit in anywhere else -- Sandry, Tris, Daja, and Briar -- are brought together at the Winding Circle temple community, where each discovers a form of magic no one recognized in them: thread, weather, smithcraft, and plants. Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic quartet follows their training under unconventional teachers and their growing bond as chosen family, as they learn to turn overlooked, everyday skills into real power. Set in the world of Emelan, it treats craft-based magic as seriously as any wizard's spellbook.
- Flightless Falcon
Mickey Zucker Reichertstandalone novel2000
similar byfound familyfantasysecondary worldquests
From the flaps of the DAW first edition: "Set in a land of scattered rival cities, this is the story of a poignant and dangerous quest, the tale of a man manipulated into a mission against his will in the hopes of regaining the only thing of importance in his life - his family. Tamison had been a miner until the cave-in which killed his brother and father, and left him trapped behind a wall of rubble, cut off from light and life for what seemed like eternity. When he was finally rescued, Tamison was so traumatized by the experience that he was left with a paralyzing fear of venturing underground. With the passing years and the growth of his new family, Tamison was willing to turn his hand to any trade that would feed his wife and children. But in a realm where guilds ruled - and where his own guild could no longer support him - Tamison became more and more desperate as even jobs for unskilled guildless laborers became impossible to obtain. Eventually Tamison was forced to what once would have been unimaginable to him. But he had no other choice. Either he must steal food of see his family starve. Caught in the act, Tamison is sentenced to a chain gang. And when he was finally released, he discovered that his family had vanished. Searching for them, Tamison became so despondent that when a guard named Dallan claimed to know of their fate he was only too ready to listen. And when Dallan said that he, too, had had someone taken by the same villains, Tamison agreed to join forces with him. But before setting out on their quest, Tamison visited a fortune-teller, hoping to be told that his mission would prove successful. Instead of learning about his own destiny, Tamison found himself acquiring a new alley as Rifkah, the fortune-teller, suddenly discovered a pressing need to leave the city. Together the three set out for the rival trading town where Dallan was certain the people they sought were being held. Tamison's initial search had led him into an encounter with a thief, who now seemed determined to attach himself to their group, and the unlikely foursome soon concocted a daring plan to break into the seemingly impenetrable city. Yet even if they succeeded in this venture it might well prove their doom, for gaining entrance to the town did not mean that they would find what they sought - or survive to win free of the place again!"
