More like Native Soil
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- Black Dragon
series2 books1983
similar bymysteriousurban fantasycontemporaryour worldbig cityfantasy
R. A. MacAvoy's Tea with the Black Dragon pairs Martha Macnamara, a folk musician searching for her missing daughter, with Mayland Long, a courtly stranger who reveals himself to be a dragon living in human form, as they investigate a computer-fraud scheme in 1980s San Francisco. Its low-key blend of contemporary mystery and gentle fantasy proved popular enough to spawn a sequel, Twisting the Rope, following the same pair into a new case years later.
- Rivers of London
series32 books2011
similar bymysteriousurban fantasycontemporarybig city+2 more
The Rivers of London series is a series of urban fantasy novels by English author Ben Aaronovitch, and comics/graphic novels by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, illustrated by Lee Sullivan.
- American Gods
series10 books1999
similar bycontemporaryour worldfantasy+2 more
Neil Gaiman's American Gods (2001) follows Shadow Moon, an ex-convict who takes a job as bodyguard to a mysterious drifter who is secretly the Norse god Odin, and is drawn into a brewing conflict between the old immigrant gods of myth and the new gods of media, technology, and modern American life. Gaiman's 2005 novel Anansi Boys is set in the same mythological world and shares the trickster god Mr. Nancy, but follows a different protagonist and story, making it a loose companion rather than a direct sequel.
- October Daye
series42 books2009
similar byurban fantasycontemporary+4 more
October Daye is a New York Times Best Selling series of urban fantasy novels by American author Seanan McGuire. They follow October "Toby" Daye, a half-fae changeling and reluctant hero of the realm.
- The Curse Workers
series3 books2010
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryour worldfantasy+2 more
Holly Black's Curse Workers trilogy is set in an alternate America where 'curse work' — magic that harms or transforms through touch — is illegal, enforced through gloves and Prohibition-era-style crime families. It follows Cassel Sharpe, the only non-worker in a family of con artists and workers, as he tries to stay out of his family's schemes despite his own hidden connection to their world. The series runs from White Cat through two further novels.
- Fault Lines (Tim Powers)
series3 books1992
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryfantasy+2 more
Tim Powers' Fault Lines novels (Last Call, 1992; Expiration Date, 1996; Earthquake Weather, 1997) are loosely connected supernatural thrillers set in a hidden-magic version of California. Last Call builds its occult conflict around a tarot-based magic system playing out between Los Angeles and Las Vegas; Expiration Date is only obliquely tied to it; and Earthquake Weather draws the threads of both earlier books into a single closing story.
- Otherworld (Kelley Armstrong)
series100 books1996
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryour world+1 more
Women of the Otherworld is Kelley Armstrong's long-running urban fantasy series about werewolves, witches, sorcerers, and other supernatural beings trying to pass as ordinary people in the contemporary world, told across thirteen novels plus assorted novellas published between 2001 and 2012. Each book tends to follow a different member of this hidden community while slowly building a shared, continuing world.
- John Justin Mallory
series12 books1987
completed
similar byurban fantasycontemporary+3 more
Mike Resnick's John Justin Mallory series follows a private detective across a sequence of comic fantasy mysteries, beginning with Stalking the Unicorn and continuing across Stalking the Vampire, Stalking the Dragon, and Stalking the Zombie, along with the linked novella Shell Game.
- Ottawa and the Valley
series17 books1984
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryfantasy+1 more
Charles de Lint set several of his early urban fantasies in and around Ottawa before creating his better-known invented city of Newford. Moonheart (1984) follows antique-store owner Sara Kendell and her uncle after a mysterious ring pulls them into the Otherworld, where they team up with a wizard and a Welsh bard against forces threatening both worlds; its sequel Spiritwalk continues their story, while other novels and story collections gathered under this heading -- including Yarrow and Greenmantle -- share the same Ottawa-area setting and folklore-steeped approach to modern fantasy.
- The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
series15 books2007
similar bycontemporaryour worldfantasy+1 more
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel is a series of six fantasy novels written by Irish author Michael Scott, completed in 2012. The first book in the series, The Alchemyst, was released in 2007, and the sequels were released at the rate of one per year, concluding with The Enchantress in 2012. The cover artist for the series is Michael Wagner.
- Midnighters
series3 books2004
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryour worldfantasy+1 more
The Midnighters Trilogy is a science-fiction fantasy series written by Scott Westerfeld. It was published by Eos in 2004. It comprises three books: The Secret Hour, Touching Darkness. and Blue Noon. Over the course of the trilogy, Jessica encounters other Midnighters with whom she allies herself. The protagonists in the trilogy are the eponymous Midnighters Desdemona, Rex, Jonathan, and Melissa. The antagonists of the series are Darklings and Slithers, dangerous and powerful beings that created and live in the Blue Hour.
- Alchemy of Secrets
series1 book2025
similar bymysteriousurban fantasycontemporarybig cityfantasy
Alchemy of Secrets follows Holland St. James, a young woman convinced that magic is real, who tracks down a local urban legend called the Watch Man and is told she will die at midnight the next day unless she finds an ancient object called the Alchemical Heart. Pulled into a hidden magical Los Angeles alongside a stranger who claims her missing sister sent him to protect her, Holland has to work out who is lying to her before the clock runs out. Stephanie Garber wrote it as a standalone 2025 novel rather than the start of a numbered series.
- Wicked Lovely
series17 books2007
similar byurban fantasycontemporaryour world+1 more
Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely opens a YA urban-fantasy series about Aislinn, a teenage girl who has always been able to see faeries and has spent her life following her grandmother's rules to avoid their notice - until Keenan, the Summer King, decides she is meant to be his queen. Later books widen out to other faerie courts and other narrators drawn into the same modern-day faerie politics layered invisibly over ordinary life. It helped kick off the mid-2000s wave of YA faerie romance.
- Alex Verus
series14 books2012
similar byurban fantasycontemporary+3 more
Benedict Jacka's urban fantasy series follows Alex Verus, a diviner - a mage who can see probable futures - running a small magic shop in London while trying to stay independent of the Light and Dark mage councils that both distrust him for his past as apprentice to a dark mage. Starting with Fated, the series escalates from small jobs and favors into open conflict with the Council structure and Alex's own former master, as his precognitive gift proves more dangerous to wield than it first appears. It is a long-running, tightly serialized series rather than standalone urban-fantasy cases.
