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Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Spirits Abroad

anchored on:fantasysoutheast asiacontemporaryshort story cyclemythic fantasywitches+2 more

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Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories centered on witches and the practice of witchcraft — covens, hedge magic, familiars, and the witch's place in her community.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of Boggart
                  Boggart

                  series · 3 books · 1993

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfae

                  Susan Cooper's Boggart series begins with the 1993 novel The Boggart, nominated for a Young Reader's Choice Award, and continues across three further books including The Boggart and the Monster and A Box of Boggarts. Cooper, best known for The Dark Is Rising sequence, writes here in a lighter fantasy-adventure register.

                • Cover of The Silver Bough
                  The Silver Bough

                  Lisa Tuttle · standalone novel · 2006

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfaemythic fantasy

                  The award-winning author of The Mysteries returns with another captivating novel in which modern-day enigmas and age-old myths come together with spellbinding results. Here is an enchanting tale set in a land rich with folklore--and ripe for a rekindling of the old ways.Nestled on the coast of Scotland, Appleton was once famous for its apples. Now, though the orchards are long gone, locals still dream of the town's glory days, when an Apple Queen was crowned at the annual fair and good luck seemed a way of life. And outsiders are still drawn to the charming village, including three very different American women.Enchanted by Appleton's famously ornate, gold-domed library, divorcee Kathleen Mullaroy has left her cosmopolitan job to start anew as the town's head librarian. Widowed Nell Westray hopes for a quiet life of gardening in the place where she and her husband spent their happiest moments. And young Ashley Kaldis has come to find her roots, and learns that the town's fortunes turned when her grandmother was crowned Apple Queen--then mysteriously disappeared.When a sudden landslide cuts Appleton off from the wider world--and the usual constraints of reality--the village reveals itself to be an extraordinary place, inhabited by legendary beings, secret rooms, and the blossoming of a rare fruit not seen in decades. Most unexpected is a handsome stranger who will draw all three women into an Otherworld in which luck and love will return to Appleton--if only one of them will believe. Lush with the romance and allure of ancient traditions, The Silver Bough will propel you into a land where, as in Eden, the bite of a single apple can alter the whole course of reality.From the Hardcover edition.

                • Cover of What-the-Dickens
                  What-the-Dickens

                  Gregory Maguire · standalone novel · 2007

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfae

                  A terrible storm is raging, and ten-year-old Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It's the story of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee who is working as an Agent of Change - trading coins for teeth - and learns that there is a dutiful tribe of skibbereen (call them tooth fairies) to which he hopes to belong. As his tale of discovery unfolds, however, both What-the- Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and less sure than they ever imagined.

                • Cover of Stardust
                  Stardust

                  Neil Gaiman · standalone novel · 1998

                  similar bywhimsicalfantasyfae+1 more

                  Stardust is a 1999 fantasy novel by British writer Neil Gaiman, usually published with illustrations by Charles Vess. Stardust has a different tone and style from most of Gaiman's prose fiction, being consciously written in the tradition of pre-Tolkien English fantasy, following in the footsteps of authors such as Lord Dunsany and Hope Mirrlees. It is concerned with the adventures of a young man from the village of Wall, which borders the magical land of Faerie.

                • Cover of Charlie (Roald Dahl)
                  Charlie (Roald Dahl)

                  series · 6 books · 1964

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasy

                • Cover of Eight Days of Luke
                  Eight Days of Luke

                  Diana Wynne Jones · standalone novel · 1975

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasymythic fantasy

                  Eight Days of Luke is a children's fantasy novel written by Diana Wynne Jones published in 1975. It tells the tale of a neglected English boy who encounters what prove to be figures from Norse mythology.

                • Cover of The King of Elfland's Daughter
                  The King of Elfland's Daughter

                  Lord Dunsany · standalone novel · 1924

                  similar bywhimsicalfantasyfaemythic fantasy

                  The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany. It is widely recognized as one of the most influential and acclaimed works in all of fantasy literature. Although the novel faded into relative obscurity following its initial release, it found new longevity and wider critical acclaim when a paperback edition was released in 1969 as the second volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

                • Cover of The Crock of Gold
                  The Crock of Gold

                  James Stephens · standalone novel · 1912

                  similar bywhimsicalfaefantasymythic fantasy

                  The Crock of Gold is a comic novel written by Irish author James Stephens, first published in 1912.

                • Cover of Which Witch?
                  Which Witch?

                  Eva Ibbotson · standalone novel · 1979

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasywitches

                  Which Witch? is a children's novel by Eva Ibbotson published in 1979. The first U.S. edition was published by Dutton Children's Books on August 1, in 1999 with illustrations by Annabel Large. A paperback edition was later published by Viking on July 3, 2000.

                • Cover of Chrestomanci
                  Chrestomanci

                  series · 12 books · 1977

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasy

                  Chrestomanci, sometimes branded The Worlds of Chrestomanci, is a heptalogy of children's fantasy books written by British author Diana Wynne Jones, published from 1977 to 2006. In the context of the parallel universe setting of the books, Chrestomanci refers to both the British government office that is responsible for supervising the use of magic and Chrestomanci Castle in southern England, which is both residence and headquarters.

                • Cover of James and the Giant Peach
                  James and the Giant Peach

                  Roald Dahl · standalone novel · 1961

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasy

                  James and the Giant Peach is a children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, drawn by Michael Simeon, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.

                • Cover of Philippa Fisher
                  Philippa Fisher

                  series · 3 books · 2008

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfae

                • Cover of The Fairy Rebel
                  The Fairy Rebel

                  Lynne Reid Banks · standalone novel · 1985

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfae

                  A rebellious fairy named Tiki, already in trouble for breaking the rule against wearing jeans, risks the further wrath of the Fairy Queen by trying to fulfill a human's special request for help.

                • Cover of Paint Your Dragon
                  Paint Your Dragon

                  Tom Holt · standalone novel · 1996

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasymythic fantasydragons

                  Paint Your Dragon is a humorous novel by Tom Holt first published in the UK in 1996 by Orbit and in paper back a year later by St. Martin's Press. It was also made available in electronic format by Hachette Digital in 2009. This was the author's twelfth humorous book and his eighteenth overall. It has been republished as part of Tom Holt's Omnibus No'7: Saints and Sinners. Inspired by the legend of St. George and the Dragon, the book tells the story of a sculptor, Bianca Wilson, who creates statues of St. George and the Dragon. These statues come to life and carry on their battle where they left off. The story is intertwined with other minor plots that supplement the main theme and ultimately aid it to its conclusion.

                • Cover of Hob
                  Hob

                  series · 21 books · 1997

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyfaeshort story cycle

                • Cover of The Halloween Tree
                  The Halloween Tree

                  Ray Bradbury · standalone novel · 1972

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasy

                  Eight boys gather on Halloween night to trick-or-treat with their ninth friend, Pipkin, only Pipkin never shows, having vanished on some errand that may cost him his life. A strange, black-robed guide named Moundshroud appears to lead the boys after him, and the chase turns into a journey through the history of the holiday itself: ancient Egypt, druidic Britain, Rome, medieval Paris, and the Mexican Day of the Dead, each stop peeling back another layer of how humanity has faced death and the dark. Ray Bradbury's Halloween novel doubles as a compressed history of the holiday's origins.

                • Cover of Oz and Lily
                  Oz and Lily

                  series · 2 books · 2012

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasywitches

                • Cover of Puck
                  Puck

                  series · 14 books · 1906

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalfaemythic fantasyshort story cycle+1 more

                • Cover of Magical Short Stories
                  Magical Short Stories

                  series · 5 books · 2020

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyshort story cycle+2 more

                • Cover of The Circus of Dr. Lao
                  The Circus of Dr. Lao

                  Charles G. Finney · standalone novel · 1935

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasy+1 more

                  The Circus of Dr. Lao (1935) is a novel written by the American newspaperman and writer Charles G. Finney. It won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: The Most Original Book of 1935. Although the first edition was illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff, many later editions omit the illustrations.

                • Cover of Tam Lin
                  Tam Lin

                  Pamela Dean · standalone novel · 1991

                  similar bycontemporaryfantasyfaemythic fantasy+1 more

                  Tam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel by United States author Pamela Dean, who based it on the traditional Scottish border ballad "Tam Lin".

                • Cover of Billy
                  Billy

                  series · 15 books · 2005

                  completed

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasyshort story cycle+1 more

                • Cover of The Whispering Knights
                  The Whispering Knights

                  Penelope Lively · standalone novel · 1971

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasywitches

                  "Three children concoct a witch's brew that conjures up Morgan Le Fay in the guise of a local tycoon's wife who immediately stirs up trouble in the village." --summary, library records of the 1st US ed. "King Arthur's sister Morgan shows up as a local rich man's new wife, influencing him to steer a superhighway through the village" --Kirkus Reviews (contemporary, undated online, negative, see above) "it takes Morgan a little time to catch up with history ... [But she] seizes upon a uniquely modern method of destroying not only the village but the entire fruitful valley--she will cause the politicians to bury it under six lanes of concrete." The "Whispering Knights" of the title are the local "circle of ancient ceremonial stones", which have supernatural powers of their own. --broadly positive review by {{a|Katherine Paterson}}, The Washington Post 1976-05-02 pL2 "World of Wonders", 3 new fantasies for ages 8 to 12

                • Cover of Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon
                  Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon

                  Wole Talabi · standalone novel · 2023

                  similar bywhimsicalcontemporaryfantasymythic fantasy

                  Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon is a 2023 novel by Wole Talabi, the author's debut novel. The novel won the 2024 Nommo Award for Best Novel. It was a finalist for the Crawford Award and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.