The Best Modern Mystery Novels

From Argentina to Japan, here are some of the finest mystery novels that are revitalizing the genre right now, all of which deserve your attention. Get ready to scratch your head and remark on the ways in which these mystery writers are blending genres and casting aside the rulebook to achieve great things. Let’s dive in.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Few modern mystery novels lean as hard on the definition of “mystery” as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle does. There are countless mystery novels that present an answer that reveals a dozen new questions, but this puzzle box of a novel actually pays all of that off with aplomb.

We begin halfway through a word that has just left the mouth of our nameless, amnesia-stricken protagonist. It is as though he has just woken up in his own body. He is in a forest, shouting a name he doesn’t know, and he is alone. He walks and eventually arrives at a manor house. The people there tell him he is their friend and that he is a doctor.

The next morning, he wakes up as a different person in the house, and it is then that he learns that he will continue to flit from body to body for eight days, tasked with solving and preventing the death of the titular Evelyn Hardcastle.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a dizzying novel, masterfully crafted and thrilling at every turn. Stuart Turton showed absurd and admirable confidence in writing such a mystery masterpiece as his debut novel. Incredible work.

Buy a copy here!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

One of the novels that stands at the summit of the dark academia genre, If We Were Villains is also an excellently crafted murder mystery story. What sets this apart from other mystery novels is the fact that its mystery sits quietly at the back of the room. You can’t forget about it but are encouraged not to look at it.

We begin with a man named Oliver, who has just been released from prison for a murder he didn’t commit. We then flashback to the year of that fateful murder. Our cast is a group of college students, all studying theatre at a specialist arts academy. They live in the minds and works of Shakespeare, and one of them will soon die.

We don’t know who the victim will be until it happens, and we know that Oliver didn’t do it. The drama of this dark academia novel is at its forefront, with the murder mystery sitting like a ghost offstage. The blend of these two genres is what makes If We Were Villains one of the great modern mystery novels.

Buy a copy of If We Were Villains here!

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

Forget your typical whodunnit. Turton’s newest novel throws you headfirst into a genre-bending whirlwind of dystopian sci-fi, pulse-pounding thriller, and classic murder mystery, all set against the idyllic backdrop of a seemingly perfect island untouched by the world’s deadly fog.

With multiple POVs and the omnipresent AI Abi whispering in everyone’s ear, the narrative unfolds like a puzzle box slowly clicking into place with Emory, a would-be detective, at the heart of it.

This is no ordinary murder mystery. The memory-wiping security system adds a mind-bending twist, forcing suspects to grapple with the possibility of being a killer without any recollection of the act. It’s a constant dance of uncovering and rediscovering, keeping you guessing at every turn. Each revelation feels like a victory, propelling you further into the heart of the island’s secrets.

If you’re looking for a book that will bend your brain and keep you guessing until the last page The Last Murder at the End of the World is it.

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Helle & Death by Oskar Jensen

Helle & Death is a loud and proud homage to the golden age of crime fiction; a rekindling of the cosy vibes and puzzle-box structure that made Agatha Christie a cherished household name. Jensen’s novel follows a group of eight friends in their early thirties who all studied at Oxford together ten years ago. One of those friends made his fortune straight out of uni by developing an app. He has now sold it and lives a reclusive life in a large country manor.

Out of the blue, Dodd has invited the other seven to visit his home for a reunion dinner, and we primarily follow Danish art historian Torben Helle as he and the rest spend an evening catching up, dining, and then being hit by the bombshell that Dodd is dying, and in his will he has left each of them £50,000. A large sum to many, and a pittance to others. The group drown their sorrows, and in the morning Dodd is found dead in his bed.

From here, the game is afoot. Made to look like suicide, it surely couldn’t have been. Right? Helle puts on his sleuthing hat and starts asking questions, piecing together motives and means. Whodunnit? You’ll have to read on to find out. It’s a doozy of a tale that echoes the best Christie stories, and cements Jensen as a stellar writer of the modern mystery novel.

Buy a copy of Helle & Death here!

The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson

Katy Watson’s The Three Dahlias is a love letter to the golden age of crime fiction, led by the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. It’s a murder-mystery story about murder-mystery stories. Our protagonists are three actresses from three generations who have all played (or are about to play) the role of an iconic detective.

Created by the author Lettice Davenport — Princess of Poison — Dahlia Lively was a Miss Marple-esque sleuth who featured in many of Davenport’s novels and was brought to life via TV and Film. To celebrate those adaptations, a celebration is being held at the stately home of the late Lettice Davenport. There, our three Dahlias will be brought together by blackmail, then by theft, and at last by murder.

This stately home inspired Davenport’s writing; most of her mystery stories were based on her own home, and now someone is using her works to inspire their own very real murders, and our three actresses must summon their inner Dahlias to solve this crime, all while fearing exposure by whomever is blackmailing them.

The Three Dahlias pays homage to the traditions of the murder mystery while also leaning into the genre’s tropes in order to break its rules and take the reader on a fresh, original journey.

Buy a copy of The Three Dahlias here!

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

This genre-blending gothic horror mystery thriller wasn’t Catriona Ward’s debut, but it was the novel that broke her into the mainstream and landed her on every reader’s lips. The Last House on Needless Street is a rare book that pushes the world of mystery novels forward, mixing terror and strangeness into its formula to create an unforgettable experience.

Our main protagonist is a man in his thirties named Ted. More than a decade ago, he was the prime suspect in the disappearance/murder of a girl at a nearby lakeside. Now, Ted lives a secluded life with his cat and his daughter. We sometimes see things from the cat’s perspective, and the daughter is not always there.

Assumptions can very quickly be made, but they are all so telegraphed, so predictable, that they can’t be true. This is a novel that wrongfoots the reader constantly and has fun doing so. The gothic and horror themes and tropes that have been mixed in make for an atmosphere that you feel as though you’re drowning in. The Last House on Needless Street set Catriona Ward up as the new queen of mystery novels.

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Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

With The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward turned the genres of mystery, thriller, horror, and gothic into Lego bricks to play with in new and experimental ways. With Looking Glass Sound, she takes that approach several steps further, writing a book within a book that examines the very concepts of fact and fiction, of memoir and narrative, of lives and lies.

Our protagonist, Wilder, first provides us with a memoir about two teenage summers spent on the coast of Maine, about the two friends he made there, and about the dangerous Dagger Man haunting the town. This doesn’t last long, however; soon, we move with Wilder to college in Pennsylvania and the strange roommate who calls himself Sky.

We watch Sky steal Wilder’s memoir and publish it as his own novel, propelling him into fame and leaving Wilder alone with nothing. Now, Wilder is an aging man going blind who has returned to coastal Maine with the aim of setting the record straight, of writing his memoir at last, and of exposing the now-dead Sky as the thief he was.

Looking Glass Sound is a dizzying modern thriller that examines the genre and its implications for readers, writers, and storytellers.

Buy a copy of Looking Glass Sound here!

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

Scorched Grace is a very different kind of mystery novel. Not so much because it breaks convention in a genre sense, but certainly in a tonal one, and in terms of what we expect from a mystery novel protagonist. Sister Holiday was a punk kid; a young lesbian from Brooklyn, covered in tattoos, playing in a band, doing drugs, and tangling with her parents.

She’s also a devout Catholic. After escaping to New Orleans, she was taken in by the progressive nuns of Saint Sebastian’s School, where she has worked as a teacher ever since. A tattooed, chain-smoking, filthy-mouthed nun isn’t your typical sleuth.

The mystery she becomes tangled up in is a series of arson attacks targeted at her school — arson attacks which also lead to the deaths of people she knows and cares about. When the police prove all but useless, Sister Holiday takes things into her own hands, especially when she feels prying eyes on her, and all signs point to her being set up for the crime.

Set against the backdrop of a scorching, sweltering, oppressive summer heat, with a supporting cast of angry nuns, punk teenagers, and unreliable cops, this is one of the most unique and compelling mystery novels in a long time.

Buy a copy of Scorched Grace here!

The Readers’ Room by Antoine Laurain

Translated from the French by Jane Aitken

The Readers’ Room is a delightful French murder mystery novel, very much in the vein of Agatha Christie and her compatriots. This is a bright yet twisted mystery that grows and tangles as it goes.

The Readers’ Room is set in a Paris publishing house. The head of the publishing house has been sent a manuscript that she sees as something truly unique and special. It’s fresh, daring, and exciting, and she has big plans for it. Meanwhile, the novel also remarks on the mechanics of publishing houses in a very intimate and satisfying way.

That new novel is published, but the identity of the author remains a mystery. When it is nominated for a prize, the prize can only be given if the identity of the author is revealed. Our publishing director is now caught up in the investigation of real-world murders tied to the events within this strange new mystery novel.

The cozy, warming note of The Readers’ Room is so at odds with its content, and that’s often the pleasant paradox of so many beloved murder mystery novels.

Buy a copy of The Readers’ Room here!

The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi

Translated from the Japanese by Deborah Boehm

The honkaku genre of Japanese murder mysteries is a broad and beloved thing. Many talented authors have added small masterpieces to this genre over the past century. The genre has a legacy so grand that it is difficult to pick one that stands above the rest, but what makes 1948’s The Tattoo Murder unique is its dedication to character drama.

Translated by Deborah Boehm, The Tattoo Murder was honkaku author Akimitsu Takagi’s debut mystery novel. Set in the aftermath of World War II, after the fall of the Japanese Empire, The Tattoo Murder is a locked-room murder mystery novel that satisfies as much as it surprises.

Our protagonist is a medical student who becomes enamoured with a young woman: the heavily tattooed daughter of a late legend of the Japanese tattooing world. She tells him that her brother and sister were both lost to the war, and that she believes she herself is not long for this world.

Her prediction proves true when she is found dead in her own home’s locked bathroom, the water still running. Her torso, the canvas for her stunning tattoo art, is missing. This is a classic Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery but with added emphasis on blood, gore, and character drama.

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How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

Here is one of those modern mystery novels that had every kind of reader sitting up and paying attention, likely in part because of its delightfully cheeky title. Reminiscent of Emerald Fennell’s daring 2020 film Promising Young Woman, How to Kill Your Family is an angry mystery novel about class disparity, selfishness, and cruelty.

Our protagonist is a young woman who was raised by a poor, single French woman in London. Grace’s mother was knocked up by a philandering playboy billionaire who cast her aside and refused to even look in her or their daughter’s direction.

After the death of her mother, Grace decides to head out on a killing spree, murdering the members of her father’s rich family one by one, and we get to sit back and watch.

The mystery is revealed in the prologue, however. The novel’s framing device: Grace is in prison, writing her memoir. Here, she tells us that she actually got away with all of these murders, and was locked up for the only murder she didn’t commit. There’s our hook; there’s our mystery.

This is a wonderfully funny, grim, and satisfying book that stands out amongst other great modern mystery novels.

Buy a copy here!

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

Translated from the Japanese by Ho-Ling Wong

The Decagon House Murders is another masterpiece of the Japanese honkaku genre of murder mystery novels, and one that uniquely and specifically pays homage to the legacy of Agatha Christie. Many (including myself) consider Christie’s magnum opus to have been her novel And Then There Were None, a story that has inspired so much art and media in the decades since its publication.

One of those writers inspired by it was Yukito Ayatsuji, and his novel The Decagon House Murders proudly echoes Christie’s novel in brilliantly inventive ways. Our protagonists are a group of university students who are all members of their college’s mystery club.

These students have headed out to an island which, only a few months prior, was the site of an as-yet-unsolved murder. The honkaku genre is a pool of fantastic mystery novels, and even amongst all these great books, The Decagon House Murders stands out as a mystery masterpiece.

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The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Grady Henrix is an author of horror novels, all of which have brilliant titles and subvert the tropes of the genre in fun ways. This particular novel, however — The Final Girl Support Group — is as much a murder mystery as it is a horror novel. Maybe moreso, honestly.

Our protagonist is Lynette, a middle-aged woman who was once a final girl (a term used to describe the last victim left alive at the end of a slasher movie). For years, Lynette has been attending the titular therapy support group for massacre survivors, but now one of these final girls stops turning up to their sessions, and is found murdered in her home.

Someone is targeting final girls, it seems. And to make things stranger, a new final girl has just appeared, having survived a fresh massacre. Lynette makes for a great protagonist; as something of an outsider and an incredibly paranoid person, she is an unlikely hero. This adds a lot to the fun and the tension.

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The Key in the Lock by Beth Underdown

Here is an exciting piece of historical drama that doubles as a compelling murder mystery story. The Key in the Lock is a narrative that is split chronologically. We follow both the adult Ivy, who lost her son in the Great War, and the younger Ivy of the past, scarred by a dreadful fire.

The mystery of the novel surrounds the fire itself, the boy who died in that fire, and the reasons behind it. As a child, Ivy was the daughter of the village daughter. When the fire broke out, she and her father were called to the big house, and are tangled in the web of lies surrounding the cause of the blaze.

As an adult, Ivy has not only lost her son but her husband is also incredibly sick, and as we flit back to the past we see how she and her husband’s relationship initially began. The Key in the Lock is a shining example of both historical British fiction and the legacy genre of murder mystery novels.

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The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews

Set in 1643, during the English Civil War, The Leviathan is a creeping, gothic piece of historical fiction that will have you gripping the pages like the wheel of an out-of-control car. Our narrator-protagonist, Thomas Treadwater, is a young man who has returned from war to his father’s farm.

His younger sister is all out of sorts because she believes that their new servant has been seducing and manipulating their ageing father. On occasion, chapters shift forward to Thomas as an old man, married and comfortable but haunted by something in his house. Something he must periodically feed and watch over.

The Leviathan is, frankly, delicious. It is a camp piece of mystery and melodrama. It has all the insane beats of a gothic horror B-movie, while also leading us by the nose with its ridiculous puzzles and problems.

It’s wonderful to see a piece of historical fiction be so lively and campy, as opposed to the more typical slow-burn approach to the genre. This is gothic historical fiction at its finest, while also being a shining example of the mystery genre.

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The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

Here is one of the most impactful mystery novels of the past decade; all the more impressive considering it is a debut novel. Sara Collins is a Black British writer and ex-lawyer. Her debut novel The Confessions of Frannie Langton has also been adapted into a beautiful TV show.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton begins with our protagonist on trial for murder. It’s 1826, she was born and educated on the plantations of Jamaica, and she has since worked as a maid for Benham family. Mrs Benham, a woman Frannie dearly loved, is dead, and it’s Frannie who stands to hang for the murder. But did she do it? And if so, why?

The Confessions of Frannie Langton isn’t only one of the best historical novels of today; it is also a twisting, turning, tantalising murder mystery novel. A mind-bending tale of race, class, empire, love, queerness, and so much more. It is a true modern classic of historical fiction and mystery fiction.

Buy a copy here!

Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro

Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle

Though Claudia Pińeiro is most famous for her crime fiction, Elena Knows is a slightly different beast. This heavy yet short literary mystery novel tackles big themes of religion, sexism, responsibility, and fantasy vs reality.

The novel’s titular, Elena, is a woman in her sixties who is suffering from Parkinson’s. It’s hard for her to move around, yet she is on a journey across Buenos Aires to meet and talk with someone she hopes will understand her situation.

The situation in question concerns Elena’s daughter, Rita, who, three months prior, was found dead at their local church. Rita was found hanging from a rope in the belfry; the death was immediately written off as suicide, but Elena refuses to believe that.

Her only evidence is that it was raining on the day of Rita’s death, and Rita had always avoided the church on rainy days for fear of lightning strikes. Elena Knows takes place over a single day as she journeys across Argentina’s capital, and we are treated to flashbacks to Rita’s death and funeral and their life together as mother and daughter before that.

This is an Argentinian novel that heavily explores the effects of religion on women and children; it asks us to consider our relationships with the people around us vs the relationships we have with the invented versions of them that our minds have cooked up.

There is more to Rita, more to Elena, more to everything than is first laid out, but this is not a crime novel. It’s a mystery story with a laser focus on religion, gender, and family dynamics.

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Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

Blending the tone and tropes of horror fiction and mystery novels, Bad Cree tells the story of a young cree Canadian woman whose dreams are following her into reality. When Mackenzie wakes up on page one, she has the freshly severed head of a crow in her hands, and this isn’t the first time a thing from her nightmares has appeared in her waking world.

The dreams themselves are guiding her back to a lakeside forest, a place where her older sisters once briefly disappeared before emerging, disheveled and shaken up but safe. That is, until one of these twin sisters, Sabrina, suddenly died of a brain aneurysm, and now she seems to be haunting her little sister’s nightmares.

The memories, the haunting, and the blurring of dreams and reality all make for some really disturbing and chilling horror and a very compelling supernatural mystery story. Twisted and chilling as a horror novel and utterly compelling as a mystery thriller, Bad Cree is a unique spectacle of a novel.

Buy a copy of Bad Cree here!

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If you’re looking for the best Korean novels in English translation, this list of ten is the perfect place to start. Many of the Korean authors (and translators) mentioned here have entire libraries available for you to explore once you’ve exhausted this list.

You can also subscribe to the Korean Literature Now Magazine and browse their website to keep with the latest news, poetry, fiction, and articles.

A note on names: In Korea, family names come first, and publishers of Korean novels in translation seem to often disagree over whether or not to flip them for English language readers. Some do, some don’t. You get used to it.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo

Translated by Jamie Chang

Approaching a book like Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an enormous undertaking; something that should be done with real consideration. The novel has sold over a million copies in its native South Korea, has been adapted into a successful Korean film, and has been a huge spark for the fires of the #metoo movement in South Korea.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a novel that has achieved so much, done so much good, and is now finally available to English-speaking readers. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 can be seen as the novelisation of the lived experiences of every ordinary Korean woman for the past forty years. It traces the life of a single woman from early childhood to marriage and motherhood.

The book begins with her being given an appointment with a psychiatrist in 2016 after she has developed a disturbing condition wherein she impersonates the voices of, and embodies the personalities of, the women in her life both alive and dead.

This condition is what initially introduces us to her character, and it is a very clear statement to the reader that Kim Jiyoung speaks for every ordinary woman of 20^th and 21^st Century South Korea. Everything you may have heard about Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 being an impactful and important piece of feminist fiction is true.

It is a book that brings to light the everyday misogyny, sexism, ignorance, aggression, bias, and abuse (both active and passive) that women in South Korea (and, of course, the world over) suffer and do their best to survive in this modern world.

To really get the most out of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, one of the most powerful Korean novels, it’s important to first understand the novel’s purpose.

It is not a story with a view to entertaining us. It is a book that enlightens, and encourages anger in, its readers. Kim Jiyoung is not an individual. She is not a character to form a bond with. She is every abuse victim. She is every woman who has encountered sexism at home, at school, in the workplace, and on the street, and who perhaps never even realised it.

Buy a copy here!

Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park

Translated by Anton Hur

Love in the Big City is a queer Korean love story. It is a tale of hedonism and friendship; a book about looking at life from all angles: with love and hate and anger and fear in our eyes.

Divided into four acts, Love in the Big City begins with Young at university, living his best life with close friend Jaehee. The two of them live together, party hard, sleep around, and look out for one another. But, eventually, Jaehee wants to get married and grow up.

This Korean novel’s second act explores Young’s relationship to his mother, now and in the past, and the third act sees him chasing love, finding it, being let down by it, and finding it again.

Translated elegantly and beautifully by Anton Hur, Love in the Big City considers how we live our lives when time is ticking, when there is fun to be had and things to be seen; when there are things to fear and people who want to hurt us.

This is also a novel full of charming details. Young and Jaehee, in their early days, look out for one another. He keeps her stocked with Marlboro cigarettes and she keeps the fridge full of fruits (blueberries are his favourites). Those details aren’t all positive — the novel doesn’t shy away from moments of pain and fear and difficulty. Young encounters homophobia and his relationship with his mother is strain in more ways than one.

Love in the Big City paints a raw and honest but ultimately kind picture of love and life in the modern day, and for that, it is one of the finest modern Korean novels.

Buy a copy here!

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Violets by Kyung-sook Shin

Translated by Anton Hur

Kyung-sook Shin is one of South Korea’s most beloved and revered authors. One read of Violets and it’s easy to see why. This is a feminist tale about friendship in the modern world, and about the insidious, subtle ways in which men abuse women on a daily basis.

One of the most impactful and changing Korean novels of the past few years, Violets begins with its protagonist, San, as a young girl in 1970. She lives in a small village and is a lonely social outsider.

In the opening chapter, San shares a moment of tender intimacy with her best friend. For San, this is an awakening. For her friend, it is frightening and wrong. They don’t see each other again, and we spend the rest of the novel with San as a twenty-something living in Seoul.

When San takes a job as a florist, she develops a sweet friendship with her coworker, who soon moves in with her. But San is also at the whim of men. She learns how men violate the spaces and bodies of women on a daily basis, in a way that seems almost invisible. Violets has the power to reshape how we all see the social dynamics at play between men and women.

The physical and verbal weapons softly used by men to scare, suppress, and intimidate the women in their lives. It’s a novel that leaves a mark, but also a tender and beautiful narrative.

Watch our full video review of Violets

Buy a copy of Violets here!

Greek Lessons by Han Kang

Translated by Deborah Smith & Emily Yae Won

Han Kang is nothing short of a legend of Korean literature. Her novel The Vegetarian, also translated into English by Tilted Axis Press founder Deborah Smith, won the International Booker Prize in 2016 and the rest is history.

The Vegetarian was the first Korean novel that this writer ever read, and that is probably true for many readers. Han Kang and Deborah Smith opened the door for countless English-language readers to become intrigued by, and seek out more Korean literature.

With Greek Lessons, Han Kang is examining and testing the powers of language itself. This short novel follows two protagonists, one of whom is losing his sight and the other is struggling with mutism. Our mute character, an academic and successful writer, has suffered through the loss of her mother, the breakdown of her marriage, and has just lost custody of her child.

She has chosen to enrol in a class to study ancient Greek as a means of reconnecting with language, and by extension, with herself. Her teacher is our other protagonist, a man who spent his youth in Germany and who, therefore, has always felt a cultural disconnect.

His story plays out in the first person, and hers in the third. This is a striking distinction; wordlessly demonstrating how he is stuck in his mind, his memories, and his anxieties. Conversely, she feels a separation, a disconnect from herself, from her experiences — she is floating and alone, cold and confused.

Greek Lessons is a love letter to language as a means of connection, of understanding, of translating our experiences and our feelings in profound and satisfying ways. Han Kang continues to write some of the best Korean books of the modern day, and Greek Lessons is no exception.

Buy a copy of Greek Lessons here!

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

Translated by Victoria Caudle

Walking Practice is an ingenious piece of speculative Korean fiction that blends elements of horror, science fiction, and satire to create something thematically dense, sometimes funny, often shocking, and satisfyingly allegorical.

Across just 150 pages, this Korean novel tells the story of a nameless and genderless alien which crash-landed on Earth fifteen years ago, after fleeing a war that destroyed their homeworld. After surviving off anything they could get their tentacles on, they found that the most satisfying food available was, in, fact, human meat.

And so, for over a decade, they have been disguising themself as men and women, and using dating apps to seduce people, glean some sexual satisfaction (and occasional companionship), before devouring them in a gleefully gruesome manner.

For the novel’s first half, we follow this pattern a few times, and we see the differences in their behaviour when presenting as a man or a woman; how the unspoken rules of society encourage them to behave.

And also how others behave in response to them. This is an explicit examination of patriarchy and the restrictions of gender expression, as well as social relationships between genders. But it goes deeper than this, as our protagonist admits to their loneliness and seeks love, companionship, community, and a sense of belonging.

With smart and satisfying queer allegories aplenty and some truly astonishing and creative translation work from Victoria Caudle, this is one of the best Korean novels of recent years.

Buy a copy of Walking Practice here!

The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun

Told from multiple perspectives, The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre provides the reader with what it says on the tin: a massacre about jelly at a theme park in Seoul. We begin with a young girl whose parents don’t get along. She so wishes they did, and when she gets lost in the crowd, the girl meets a man whose face is out of focus, and is offering visitors to the park a jelly sweet that will keep those who eat them bonded forever.

This turns out to be unsettlingly literal, as the jelly sweet causes its consumers to melt into jelly, and their forms begin to melt into one amorphous thing. We then see this gradual massacre play out from different angles: that of a girl in a difficult romance, that of a fed-up employee who wears a mascot uniform, and even that of a successful CEO who is secretly part of a satanic cult.

Thematically, these people represent dissatisfaction, exhaustion, and frustration—in work, love, and life—and the theme park is their place to escape; the place where dreams come true. But things are never that simple, are they?

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

Translated by Anton Hur

In her introduction to this incredible book, author Baek Sehee notes that her hope is for people to read this book and think, “I wasn’t the only person who felt like this.” To that end, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is an exercise in empathy; in the author opening up her chest and letting her darkest feelings tumble out, in the hope that you will feel understood.

Depression is isolating, frightening, and draining. Knowing there’s someone else out there who has felt this way — who still feels this way — can be incredibly comforting.

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is unique amongst these other Korean novels in that it isn’t actually a novel, but rather a kind of epistolary narrative that tracks a woman’s life through therapy. Most chapters begin and/or end with a confession: a personal experience or a feeling related to the author’s depression and anxieties. The rest of the chapter is a transcript of a therapy session.

These sessions divulge personal experiences and opinions, and also provide us with advice and understanding from the therapist as they listen to the author’s experiences. It feels very voyeuristic, getting to know this author’s inner thoughts and feelings so intimately, but the sense of companionship that comes from it all is so appreciated.

Writing something so revealing and honest must have taken incredible courage, but Baek Sehee has done so with the selfless desire to help others feel less alone and unique in their pain. If you struggle with depression, or know someone who does, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a lesson in empathy and a hug from a comrade-in-suffering.

Buy a copy here!

The Plotters by Un-su Kim

Translated by Sora Kim-Russell

The most important thing to note about The Plotters is that it’s billed as a thriller, but it is actually far more than that. Rather than blending genres and emerging as a kind of Frankenstein’s Monster of different styles, The Plotters rather refuses to acknowledge genre.

The Plotters tells the story of Reseng, a successful assassin raised in The Doghouse Library – a library filled with books but empty of people, somewhere in Seoul – by an enigmatic old man known as Old Raccoon. Reseng has grown up knowing of nothing but the business of assassination, and curiously also knowing very little about that, either.

This is a piece of penetrating fiction driven by its eccentric but grounded characters, providing a unique and entertaining setting and circumstance, and telling a story subtly tied to the history and politics of modern day Korea. After the Korean War and the separation of the two Koreas along the thirty-eighth parallel, control of North Korea was seized by the Kim regime.

What is lesser-known, however, is that South Korea too did not have democratic freedom until the 1980s, suffering through martial law for some decades. This key aspect of Korean history plays into the story of The Plotters, as the democratisation creates a power struggle amongst assassins and leaves room for a different kind of man to take charge.

Blending this wild and wonderful story of assassins who work from an old library with real-world political events allows for some subtle commentary on the nature of fascism, martial law, democracy, and even capitalism, with regards to how these things affect the kinds of lives people can lead. Even assassins are not immune to political shifts.

The Plotters is one of the most ambitious Korean novels; something that has to be read to be believed. Its ability to defy genre, allow its plot to be carried along by comedy and eccentric characters, and keep a slow pace that takes time without losing momentum is truly staggering.

It takes influence from the tumultuous events of South Korea’s recent past without becoming dry and melancholy. Most importantly of all, it is fantastically fun.

Buy a copy of The Plotters here!

The Cabinet by Un-su Kim

Translated by Sean Lin Halbert

Un-su Kim’s The Cabinet is a fantastic and engaging blend of speculative short stories and a longer, underlying thread. Our protagonist, Mr. Kong, is a simple office worker who has wound up as the caretaker of a filing cabinet full of accounts of strange people known as “symptomers”: human beings with odd conditions and abilities.

The novel contains many stories dedicated to symptomers: a man with a gingko tree growing out of his finger; people who seem to jump forward in time at random; people who sustain themselves off glass, steel, or gasoline. These stories make up half the narrative, and paint a vivid picture of a world that is far stranger than what we see and believe in our day-to-day.

The broader narrative is about Kong himself. We gradually learn about his life, his boss, his childhood, how he ended up in this position. There is a mystery to uncover here, and as the novel progresses, that mystery gradually unfolds in an addictive, tantalising, and strange way.

The Cabinet is a work of boundless imagination, written by a beloved Korean author and translated brilliantly by Sean Lin Halbert.

Buy a copy of The Cabinet here!

Tower by Bae Myung-hoon

Translated by Sung Ryu

Tower is a truly unique and boundary-pushing piece of Korean science fiction. When we look at Korean novels in translation, too few of them are genre fiction. But that is slowly changing, and Tower is a Korean book you need to pick up and read.

As its name implies, this piece of Korean sci-fi is set entirely in an enormous tower. This titular tower is a nation unto itself, home to 500,000 people. Bae implies that it was built on Korean soil but this is never explicitly stated. The book is divided into a series of interconnected speculative tales, all set within this solitary tower nation known as Beanstalk.

The world-building is fantastic, as the tower needs to be a believable place in order for the author’s disparate tales to work. Infrastructure, economy, politics, and daily life all need to be accounted for and designed in a way that the reader can understand and appreciate.

The six stories in Tower are tied together by the place itself and by recurring characters and events. And each story serves to further build the world while also telling an entirely self-contained tale. In that sense, this is a unique piece of Korean fiction that blends the concepts of the novel and the short story collection.

And each tale also, as all good science fiction does, poses an ethical, political, or philosophical quandary for us to muse over.

Buy a copy of Tower here!

Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim

Translated by Anton Hur

So often, the novels we come to expect to see translated from Korean into English are literary novels set in our modern day; bold and challenging works that are inherently tied to the modern Korean experience. And while it is always important to have these groundbreaking works of fiction in translation, it is also exciting to see the shift towards receiving more genre fiction: fantasy, horror, romance, and sci-fi.

Blood of the Old Kings is very much a breath of fresh air in that regard—an epic fantasy novel that leans into the classic tropes of the genre (magic swords, dragons, rebellions, and quests) while also providing readers with a powerful connection to real-world politics through an allegory concerning colonialism and empire.

Three unconnected characters—one who receives a sword from a dragon, another who studies magic and whose mind is suddenly invaded by a strange voice, and a third who is investigating the death of his friend—embark on missions that will eventually see them crossing paths as they take steps to rise up against the empire that annexed their nation. A thrill ride of a Korean fantasy novel.

I’m Waiting for You by Kim Bo-young

Translated by Sung Ryu and Sophie Bowman

With the spread of Korean science fiction into the West, through the hard work of talented and dedicated translators like Ryu and Bowman, we get incredible gems like this one. I’m Waiting for You is one of the best Korean novels published in the past few years. Here’s why.

Kim Bo-Young is a legend of Korean literature, and even worked as a script editor on Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer. With I’m Waiting for You, readers can see first-hand why she’s such a special sci-fi author. This collection of four stories is essential reading amongst sci-fi books by women writers.

The four stories in this collection actually work as two pairs. The first and fourth stories — I’m Waiting For You and On My Way to You — are the same tale told from two perspectives: a bride and groom each making their way home to Earth for their wedding ceremony.

The second and third stories — The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life — also the longest and shortest tales respectively, blend religion, mysticism, and science fiction. In these two middle tales, the characters are a set of gods, and it is quickly revealed that they created Earth as a school in which they themselves can learn and grow.

The main protagonist of The Prophet of Corruption, Naban, is a single god whose prophets, disciples, and children all separated from them like cells. Individually, they spend entire lifetimes on Earth, learning and experiencing and dying.

Naban believes in asceticism as a school of learning; their children are reborn in low roles; they suffer and toil and eventually return home. But some are rebelling against this approach to living and learning. What makes these stories so tantalisingly addictive is Kim’s world-building and her attempt at writing gods as characters, with motivations and behaviours different from our own.

The stories that bookend this collection are each written in an epistolary fashion, as letters to the other. In I’m Waiting For You, our nameless groom is trying to make it to Earth, and is updating his bride each time something goes awry (and a lot goes awry).

The same is true in On My Way to You; the bride has her own hurdles to overcome. These two stories are heartbreaking. You’ll root for them, cry for them, hope against hope that things will work out for them.

Buy a copy here!

Your Utopia by Bora Chung

Translated by Anton Hur

From the author of the wonderfully strange, exciting, and diverse Cursed Bunny, Your Utopia is a science fiction short story collection. The protagonists of this collection vary from far-future space-faring humans to artificially intelligent cars and sentient elevators.

Though these stories are all within the realm of science fiction, they explore an enormous spectrum of style and tone. One story, Seed, is a bleakly funny satire that observes a conversation between a copse of trees and a handful of eugenics-made humans. Another, A Very Ordinary Marriage, follows a newly-married man who becomes paranoid when he catches his wife making secretive phone calls in a language he has never heard before.

The sheer amount of scope and variety in these stories wonderfully showcases the potential of science fiction to tell stories that make readers laugh, scream, and cry. Bora Chung is one of the most imaginative Korean authors, and this imagination is on full display in the stories of Your Utopia.

Buy a copy of Your Utopia here!

The Specters of Algeria by Hwang Yeo Jung

Translated by Yewon Jung

Separated into three acts and an epilogue, The Specters of Algeria begins with a girl named Yul, born during the military dictatorship of South Korea. Yul’s father is part of a theatre troupe, along with the father of her childhood friend Jing. We see the world through Yul’s eyes when the novel first begins.

Like with To Kill A Mockingbird, this naive perspective gives us a blinkered view of Yul’s world, but soon her friend Jing moves abroad and she grows up to own her own dress alteration business. Part two, set in the modern day, follows Cheolsu, a community theatre employee who tracks down Yul’s uncle Osu, a member of the theatre troupe who wrote and directed a play called The Specters of Algeria.

Or did he? As we soon learn, Osu claims that the play was originally written by Karl Marx and was lost to time, until he translated it, claimed it as his own, and directed it during the years of dictatorship as an act of subversion. The Specters of Algeria, like Timerlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, is a story about the power of art, specifically theatre, as something that can transcend oppression, push back against it, and bring people together.

Buy a copy of The Specters of Algeria here!

The Age of Doubt by Pak Kyongni

Translated by some of the best Koean-to-English translators working in the industry, including Anton Hur, Sophie Bowman, and Mattho Mandersloot, this is a humbling short story collection. Pak Kyongni was one of Korea’s most celebrated and renowned authors, writing in the decades following the Korean War and through a South Korean dictatorship.

What we have here are six stories and a commentary, all written during the 1950s and 60s, which shed a light on the ordinary lives and tragedies of everyday people during that period. Many of these tales focus on women and their families, such as the titular The Age of Doubt, which follows a woman who lost her husband to the war and her young son to an accident shortly after.

Or the similarly titled The Age of Darkness, which details the intertwined lives of a family shaken by a shared tragedy. Few authors have ever shaken the Korean literary landscape like Pak Kyongni, and to have a selection of her early tales translated in this fashion, in a single collection, is a true gift!

Buy a copy of The Age of Doubt here!

My Brilliant Life by Ae-ran Kim

Translated by Chi-young Kim

Adapted into a Korean film, and now available in English translation by the translator of Kyung-sook Shin’s Please Look After Mother, My Brilliant Life is a gorgeous gut-punch of a literary novel by Korean author Ae-ran Kim.

My Brilliant Life tells the story of Areum, a sixteen-year-old boy with a degenerative disease. He is not likely to live much longer, given that he has the internal organs of a man in his eighties. Before he dies, however, Areum has a gift he wishes to give to his parents:

“My plan was this: write the story of my parents from the very beginning and give this to them on my seventeenth birthday. Instead of awards or a college diploma, I would gift them this story.”

Areum’s parents were childhood sweethearts; they had him when they themselves were only sixteen. Despite being careless, they made a beautiful family together and Areum became a gift. They formed a perfect, loving family together; something truly inspiring.

Thanks to his parents and their love, Areum has lived a wonderful life, despite its length. And he is grateful for this, so he wishes to give them one final present that highlights and celebrates the beauty of their love and their life together.

Throughout Areum’s youth, his parents have romanced him with stories of their own lives, their young years, and their relationship. He uses these stories to build his book. Meanwhile, as he compiles this final gift, he is in and out of hospital with health problems: blindness, heart failure, epilepsy, and more.

Despite how sad this story is, it remains uplifting. It’s a celebration of love and life and family. It teaches us to be grateful for those who show us love and kindness. It reminds us that life is something to cherish and admire and enjoy. For that reason, My Brilliant Life is one of the most poignant and powerful modern Korean novels.

Buy a copy of My Brilliant Life here!

The Court Dancer by Kyung-sook Shin

Translated by Anton Hur

Kyung-Sook Shin has a gift for understanding her own people, her own society, with all of its beauty and its failings — this kind of gift is something that might be considered simple for anyone who is from anywhere at all, but that is arguably very far from the truth. With these skills, she has written some of the best Korean novels ever.

For Shin, each new novel demonstrates new strengths she had not previously revealed; new muscles she has not before flexed. This time she makes the telling of historical fiction seem as effortless as pouring crisp cold water into a glass.

Based on a true story — set in the final years of 19^th century Korea as China, Russia, and Japan are threatening the little nation trapped between them — The Court Dancer is being described as a love story first and foremost: the romantic tale of a man and a woman from two different worlds, colliding in a moment of beauty.

And, sure, that’s fine, but really this is the tale of a woman born without a family, adopted into the courts of the Joseon Dynasty, romanced by a French diplomat, whisked away across the waves to foreign shores, and all the while trying to find the time to understand who she is, what she is, and what she wants out of a life that has never really been hers.

It is a tragic tale that transcends place and time to show people of all cultures that a woman’s life must be fought for. In translation, much of Shin’s earlier writing has allowed non-Koreans to experience and understand the mind and heart of the modern Korean.

With The Court Dancer, she has shown us the heart of pre-modern Korea with all the heart and mind she herself always lends to her writing.

Buy a copy of The Court Dancer here!

Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah

Translated by Deborah Smith

Bae Suah is one of the great contemporary authors of South Korea. Author of A Greater Music, Nowhere to Be Found, and North Station (some of the best Korean novels of all time), she has burst onto the stage that is 2020 with a topsy-turvy surrealist tale that feels uncomfortably in-line with the narrative of the 21^st Century.

Untold Night and Day is, to borrow author Sharlene Teo’s words, a fever dream of a novel; a book that is unknowably yet aggressively familiar to all of us. Ayami is a former actress who has worked for two years at a menial position in a tiny, almost entirely unknown, Seoul theatre which puts on auditory performances for blind audiences.

She’s approaching thirty, anxious, and unsure of herself in every way imaginable. She also soon discovers that she will soon be out of a job. What begins as a vivid setup — a drawing with thick black lines — gently begins to grow fuzzy. Ayami’s own colours start to blend, as do those of the story, and of time itself.

Reality, for us and for Ayami, slips away and loops in on itself. Surrealism, soon enough, has its nails in us and it won’t allow us to wake up. There perhaps isn’t a more apt description of Untold Night and Day than ‘fever dream’. This parallel runs deep.

At 150 pages, the novel is short – a quick read that, like a fever dream, manages to play deceptively with time and progress. You’ll wonder how long you’ve had your head in the book before a chapter break eventually allows you to take a breath. You might even emerge sweating and confused.

Untold Night and Day should be read with a clean and sober mind, then talked about after a few vodka shots. It’s a dirty and cracked narrative that encourages questions about our 21^st Century world and how we’re living in it. The novel is, indeed, a Lynchian fever dream, but it demands perseverance and complete absorption.

And, honestly, even if you were to try and quit it, the book likely wouldn’t let you. Open it up and let it sink into you as you sink into it.

Buy a copy of Untold Night and Day here!

b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa

Translated by Sunhee Jeong

Coming-of-age novels, and stories of self-discovery, can take a variety of forms across myriad genres of fiction, but most are typically grounded in realism, following the rules of their world.

b, Book, and Me is a story of a different sort, leaning on a fever dream surrealism that grows in intensity over time, and using ambiguity and a narrative fog to reinforce the strangeness and frustration felt and experienced by young people year after year. It’s a layered and anxious tale that captures the dangers and mysteries of youth better than most.

The titular b, Book, and Me are our three protagonists: b is a teenage girl from a poor family living in a nameless coastal town in Korea; Book is a friend met along the way who has an obsession with reading and collecting books; and the ‘me’ refers to Rang, our initial narrator and best friend of b.

The novel is split into three parts, with the first following a few clear and beautifully depicted days and memories in the life of Rang. The second follows b and begins to stretch itself into a feverish surrealism that mirrors her own unique fears, struggles, and stresses. The third teams the two up with Book as the walls of reality almost fall away entirely.

b, Book, and Me is one of the most creative Korean novels; it does an uncanny job of illustrating the often surreal and frightening life of a teenager growing up somewhere unknown, with vague ideas that there is more beyond their world.

The novel’s dreamlike nature is gently poured into the narrative as it moves forward and serves to reinforce the themes of the plot and the nature of its characters. Our protagonists are likeable, their motivations clear, and their world eerily understandable in spite of its impossible qualities.

Rarely does a novel manage to be so abstract and fluid and yet so clearly relatable. b, Book, and Me is a smart, beautifully written, masterfully translated work of Korean fiction that makes for a frightening yet true-to-life story of self-discovery and friendship.

Buy a copy here!

The Hole by Hye-young Pyun

Translated by Sora Kim-Russell

Here is, perhaps, an entirely new kind of frightening. We’re living in a new golden age of horror films right now, and, if Hye-young Pyun’s books are any indication, a parallel golden age of horror writing as well. The protagonist and narrator of The Hole is the adorably-named Oghi, whom we learn about in two forms: In flashbacks where Oghi is presented as a successful professor and academic in a marriage falling apart.

This provides the disparity between Oghi’s successes and his wife’s failures which cause an uncomfortable rift between them. And in the present day. We find Oghi after a car crash leaves him unable to move or even speak, only communicating in blinks and the odd twitch of his left hand.

With these contrasting Oghis — the memories of him being confident, at times callous, versus the present day where he is mute and every voice has a patronising tone — create an immediately unsettling paradigm shift. The reader will find that, after each flashback ends, a kind of anti-catharsis sets in as we remember that, in the present day, Oghi is a prisoner in his own body; a narrator who cannot narrate. This is the first terror of the story.

The other terror comes in the form of Oghi’s mother-in-law, both his caretaker and sole remaining family member. After losing her daughter in the same crash that left Oghi paralysed, his mother-in-law is hardly an emotionally stable caretaker. To say more would be to risk spoiling things.

Where The Hole shines, and wherein lies its true terror, is the state of Oghi’s body and his mind. So much horror and suspense writing relies on running, hiding, chasing, and being lost. But Oghi is not lost, and he cannot run. He is trapped from page one.

In choosing to ignore the tropes which make horror what it has become famous for, Pyun has crafted a very new kind of terror which builds on the writing of Franz Kafka, but with none of the black humour that results in staring into the void.

Instead, it replaces that with true, absolute dread which is maintained like a painfully drawn-out musical note for hours, page after page after page. The Hole is one of my favourite Korean novels, as well as one of my favourite horror novels ever.

Buy a copy of The Hole here!

The White Book by Han Kang

Translated by Deborah Smith

Calling it The White Book feels reductive, almost wrong on purpose. Because The White Book is less a book and more an embracing feeling of familiarity. This book — one of the best Korean novels of our time — is something you live and feel, and all of this is created by its use of empty space.

Han Kang has created a story unlike any you will have read, but beyond being a story it is very much an exploration of the familiar things in life. There are beautiful black and white photos throughout the book, taken by Han Kang, which only add to the experience as you try to grapple with the tone of each beautiful image.

The White Book has real depth and I can’t help but feel that every reader will have a different experience with it. Each tiny chapter of this story is titled with the name of a white thing, and the events and musings of the chapter circle its material theme.

It is this, coupled with the empty space, that so draws the reader into the very feeling of whiteness. A bleak kind of melancholy peacefulness that takes hold and gently squeezes. The narrative flits between first and third person, but always centres on the same lone character: a Korean woman, spending a little time living in an unspecified central European city.

It is here that our nameless narrator spends her time in introspection, though the exact subject of which I dare not say.

The story has nothing in the way of true dialogue, and its chapters are short with the time between them unclear, but what is clear is the way that the character lessens the weight she carries, eases her feelings, and helps the reader lose the tension they perhaps don’t know they are holding onto as they read.

The White Book is an experience inasmuch as it is a novel. I’d urge all Han Kang fans to read it, but also anyone looking for a very different kind of art; art which is difficult to explain and more difficult to talk about afterwards.

Buy a copy of The White Book here!

At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong

Translated by Sora Kim-Russell

Hwang Sok-yong is arguably Korea’s most prestigious and well-respected living author. Following the success of his novels Princess Bari and Familiar Things, we arrive here, At Dusk.

The narrative here is split in two, with the books odd-numbered chapters recalling the life and memories of Park Minwoo, a rags-to-riches architect approaching old age, and the even chapters following the story of Jung Woohee, a twenty-eight-year-old woman who is barely making ends meet by working part-time to fund her passion for writing and directing theatre.

These two narratives have seemingly nothing in common. Until they do. Park Minwoo’s story is a familiar one: that of a man born into hardship and poverty, working his way through a series of fascinating and intense trials and labours to arrive at the success he always dreamed of.

The interesting twist in the formula here is that, for Park, the trials have always been passed, and now we are treated to a backwards view of his life from the viewpoint of an ageing man who has become disenchanted by his riches and his current social, political, and financial situation.

As for Jung, her tale takes on a very different narrative flavour. It is at once lighter in tone and heavier. Her struggles are in the present, and the immediacy of her pain and her fight for success is felt with real intensity. All the same, she has a lot of personality on show, and her dialogue and her exchanges are packed with vigour.

The theme of the day here is very much in the steadily increasing gravity of regret that weighs down on Park as he considers his role in the modernisation and transformation of modern day Korea. In his flashbacks he slowly begins to pine for the raw life that he had carved out and survived through in the slums of his childhood, a time when perhaps he felt more alive.

Buy a copy of At Dusk here!

To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-young

Translated by Soje

In this harrowing post-apocalyptic novel that brings to mind others of its kind — The Road, Oryx and Crake, I Am Legend — Korean author Choi Jin-young shows us how, against all odds, love can still win out in the end. After a disease has ravaged the entire planet, To The Warm Horizon presents us with two young Korean women who come across one another on the road in the cold wilds of Russia, in the most adverse of circumstances.

Dori lost her parents to the disease and is now in charge of her deaf and mute younger sister. Jina is travelling with her large extended family and childhood friend Gunji. Dori and Jina’s encounter leads to some raw and uncomfortable events, exactly the kind you’d expect to see in a disease-wrought, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But against and despite all of this, and more,, the love and dedication that grows and is tended between these two women keeps the reader hopeful. This is a beautiful lesbian love story that uses this hook to set it apart from the less hopeful novels that populate the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction, making it an essential modern Korean novel.

Buy a copy of To the Warm Horizon here!

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum

Translated by Shanna Tan

A wonderfully cozy novel which, rather than being led ever onwards by its plot, instead reflects the ebb and flow of ordinary life with charming and astonishing accuracy. This is the story of a woman who, after realising that she is chasing happiness, leaves her job, divorces her husband, and fulfils her dream of opening an independent bookshop.

That woman is Lee Yeongju. Now in her late thirties, Yeongju is the proud owner of the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. And chapter by chapter, we feel as though we are sitting in the corner of her shop as things gently shift and change. She hires a barista, hosts bookclubs, interviews authors in front of a small audience, grows her shop’s social media profile, and builds a steady community of regulars to the shop.

As the cast of characters fills out, we get to know each of them more intimately, and many of them get their own chapters. We watch where they go, listen as they talk through their thoughts and troubles, and admire how they face the choices that appear before them.

Many of the book’s chapters are simple philosophical musings on business, literature, writing, and larger concepts like love and happiness. Our characters talk through their worries with each other and become closer as a result. It is wonderfully true-to-life and a very charming, intimate reading experience.

Buy a copy here!

Endless Blue Sky by Lee Hyoseok

Translated by Steven D. Capener

Korea has seen a tumultuous hundred years, with the Japanese occupation, a civil war, and finally a divide carved across its belly, separating North and South. In the midst of such tumult, it is easy for information to be lost.

Fighting back against all of this information loss, and tearing down the barriers of language and time, is the publishing house Honford Star, who began by translating the short stories of many lost Korean writers into English. Endless Blue Sky is Honford Star’s first full-length Korean novel.

The story of Endless Blue Sky begins with our protagonist, the writer Ilma, travelling up to Manchuria for the umpteenth time for business and, while he is there, engaging with a Russian dancer, Nadia, whom he is deeply enamoured with.

Conversing mostly in English, their relationship blossoms quickly; and Nadia, through Ilma, has fallen in love with the fascinating world of Joseon (Korea), demanding to be stolen into it so that she might discover its fashion, its theatre, and its art for herself.

Framing this blossoming romance is a colourful cast of characters, the most eccentric of which being the actress Danyeong, a woman obsessed with separating Ilma from his foreign lover and stealing him away.

Her behaviour is so obscenely cloak-and-dagger that the reader cannot help but picture her, finger to her lips, sneaking a few steps behind Ilma, muttering to herself about love and passion from behind a fake nose and moustache.

More than once, as I read, I considered with a smile that Lee seems to exist as a wonderful opposite to Japan’s Yukio Mishima, a man of far-right conservative values who chose to espouse his nationalistic beliefs through aggressive stories of blood and betrayal.

In much the same way, Lee’s politics are not hidden here, but rather exposed for all to see. The difference is in his opposing beliefs. While Mishima worshipped traditionalism and rejected change, Lee welcomed globalisation, socialism, and the eradication of borders.

While Mishima wrote with angst and rage, Lee wrote with love and celebration, though both wrote from the heart all the same. Lee Hyoseok was absolutely one of the more fascinating writers of early twentieth-century Korea; a man of thrilling political philosophies and a delightfully European approach to storytelling.

Endless Blue Sky is a joy to read, with eccentric characters and a love story that twists and turns with real human depth and agency as it moves on at a swift click. One of the best classic Korean novels and a true literary gem.

Buy a copy here!

City of Ash and Red by Hye-young Pyun

Translated by Sora Kim-Russell

From the writer of The Hole (winner of the Shirley Jackson Award 2017), City of Ash and Red is a phenomenal celebration of all that is dark and wrong, and readers are in for a jolly good dystopian time with this one. This is just more proof of Pyun’s skill as author of the best Korean novels of this century.

Our nameless protagonist (nameless, perhaps, because his name doesn’t matter, or because it’s up for debate), divorced and working as a rat catcher, he is quickly and inexplicably transferred by his company to a country only referred to as C.

Upon arrival he finds the whole country drowning in disease and rubbish, with people being dragged into quarantine, and fear and distrust in the air. For the duration of his transfer, he has been in contact with someone named Mol, but he soon learns that Mol is not so easy to locate – the name is incredibly common in Country C.

This is the first of a hundred problems that our protagonist faces, as he is soon quarantined, released, has his luggage ‘misplaced’, is told not to come into work for ten days, and receives a call from an old friend who had married our protagonist’s ex-wife, only to be told by this friend that their ex-wife was found dead in our hero’s apartment, and he is a prime suspect.

Any fan of Kafka will recognise parallels between this tale and more than one of old Franz’s, with the key link being an overwhelming feeling of confusion, fear, and frustration. Our protagonist seeks answers, but none are to be found.

He wants to explain himself, but nobody will listen — nobody, in fact, cares. He wants to gain a firm grip on the facts, to stop his world from spinning and twisting, but the more desperate he becomes, the more life beats and berates him. You might see why, at this point, calling this book merely Kafkaesque is not enough. City of Ash and Red is something else entirely.

Buy a copy here!

The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart by Chesil

Translated by Takami Nieda

Note: The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart was written in, and translated from Japanese so consider it a wild card, but it remains vital to the history and culture of modern Korea. Inspired by the author’s own experiences as a Zainichi Korean in Japan, The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart sheds a bright light on this subculture of Japanese people.

Zainichi Koreans are Japanese citizens of Korean heritage whose existence came around as a result of the Japanese empire’s occupation of the Korean peninsula. Our protagonist, Ginny/Jinhee Park, was born of Zainichi Korean parents and raised in Japan, speaking only Japanese.

At the beginning of the novel, Ginny lives in Oregon and recounts to us her childhood in Japan, going to both Japanese and Korean schools. From her earliest age, as a Zainichi Korean, Ginny (born Jinhee), faced discrimination and hardship. We see these hardships through visceral and painful vignettes.

We see the way that Japanese people view Jinhee and her people, and the way she was treated at Korean school as a girl who only speaks Japanese. Jinhee is a child of two cultures but feels like she belongs to neither; discriminated against whichever way she turns.

The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart is a difficult read but it couldn’t be anything else. It asks for sympathy and understanding, and has so much to teach us about Zainichi Korean culture.

Buy a copy here!

Even though the world isn’t ending, we are in uncertain times and people like to know they’re not alone. Or maybe they just want reassurances that others have it worse.

As the name suggests, post-apocalyptic fiction is about a civilisation that has collapsed. Often this is due to some pandemic (Station Eleven), natural disaster (The Drowned World), nuclear war (On the Beach) or aliens (The Day of the Triffids).

Not surprisingly, post-apocalyptic novels often intersect with fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian and horror.

Outstanding Post-Apocalyptic Novels

Commercial post-apocalyptic fiction first emerged in the late 19th century with Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, although arguably it has been around much longer if you include folklore, such as the biblical story of the flood.

Following WWII and the very real and sudden fear of a nuclear war, post-apocalyptic fiction found itself on the rise in popularity.

Although these are fears shared by people the world over, the books available and widely known within the sub-genre continue to be largely from white, English-speaking authors. So, let’s change that. 

Here are some of the best post-apocalyptic novels, many of which have been translated, or were written by people of colour, because there is no better time than now to come together!

To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-young

Translated from the Korean by Soje

In this harrowing post-apocalyptic novel that brings to mind others of its kind — The Road, Oryx and Crake, I Am Legend — Korean author Choi Jin-young shows us how, against all odds, love can win out in the end.

Set after a disease has ravaged the planet, To The Warm Horizon follows two young Korean women who have met on the road in the cold wilds of Russia.

Dori has lost her parents to the disease and is now in charge of her deaf and mute sister. Jina is travelling with her extended family and childhood friend Gunji.

Dori and Jina’s encounter leads to some raw and chilling events, exactly the kind you’d expect to see in a disease-wrought, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But against all of this, the love and dedication that these two women find for each other keeps the reader hopeful.

This is a beautiful lesbian love story that uses this hook to set it apart from the less hopefully novels that populate the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction, making it one of the most unique post-apocalyptic novels out there.

Buy a copy of To the Warm Horizon here!

The Last Children of Tokyo (The Emissary) by Yoko Tawada

Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani

Conceptually, The Last Children of Tokyo (known in the US as The Emissary) is one of the most unique post-apocalyptic novels of recent years.

As The Last Children of Tokyo begins, Yoshiro, a retired author, has passed his hundredth birthday and still spends every morning out jogging with his rent-a-dog (there are few animals left in Japan, and certainly no wild ones).

His great-grandson Mumei, however, was born, like every member of his generation, with grey hair and failing health. His life expectancy is poor, and his bones will likely fail him before he exits his teens.

Yoshiro and Mumei exist in the book as fascinating examples of their society: a Japan in which the cities have mostly been abandoned, ties with the outside world have been cut, all other languages are no longer taught or spoken.

Many of the middle-aged people have moved to Okinawa, where they work on fruit farms which are almost completely the sole providers of food for the other islands of Japan. Yoshiro’s daughter is one such farmer.

Tawada takes the time to hold a mirror up to not only pollution but also the average person’s fear of GM crops, pharmaceutical corporations, and so on.

She wonders where contamination of our food and water may lead us, but also the crippling power of irrational fear. And she does this with gall, discomfort, and more than a little humour.

By a copy of The Last Children of Tokyo here!

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Onyesonwu, whose name means Who Fears Death, is the product of a brutal sexual assault, named so by her mother in hopes her name would inspire courage.

As a mixed-race child, Onye is rejected by both the whites (Nuru) and blacks (Okeke). She is an Ewu, children whose skin colour is believed to be the result of violence.

Who Fears Death introduces us to a post-apocalyptic Africa following a nuclear holocaust rampant with genocide and wanton violence.

Although it is seemingly set in the very distant future, many of this world’s problems are easily recognisable today, particularly the sadistic sexism and racism many of the characters are subjected to.

Okorafor has created a world full of sorcery, folklore and heroism. It is equal parts terrifying and bewitching, and you’ll never be the same again after reading it.

Buy a copy of Who Fears Death here!

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

Translated from the Russian by Natasha Randall

If you want unsettling, post-apocalyptic fiction, the Russians have you covered.

Following a nuclear holocaust, what little remains of Moscow’s population have been forced underground into the city’s extensive metro system.

Whole communities have developed around the different stations, wars are waged over resources and differing governing strategies.

To make matters worse, mutated creatures stalk the land above, ensuring those beneath will never see daylight again.

20 years after the nuclear war that drove the survivors underground, a young man named Artyom is tasked with delivering a message that could have unimaginable consequences.

Metro 2033 was also turned into a successful video game franchise with a dedicated fanbase which really nailed the tone and atmosphere of an unsettling, gruesome, and nightmarish post-apocalyptic world.

Buy a copy of Metro 2033 here!

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

The Girl With All The Gifts was Carey’s first foray into prose, after writing many award-winning comic books, and what a breakout hit it was.

Blending sci-fi and horror to create one of the fiercest and best post-apocalyptic novels, this book is a dazzling exploration of human connection.

Our protagonist, Melanie, lives in a cell. Every day, she is strapped into a wheelchair and wheeled into a classroom full of other young children where they learn subjects like maths and English, like in any other school.

Melanie loves one teacher in particular, and hates the military sergeant who treats her with fear and disdain.

Soon enough, we learn that the world outside this military base is infested with zombie-like things that have been infected with the fungal cordyceps (just like in The Last of Us).

Melanie and the other children are infected with the fungus, and yet they remain calm and lucid and intelligent. That is, unless they are given the chance to taste human flesh, in which case they become feral and dangerous.

Sergeant Parks and the scientists at the base believe that Melanie is dead, and that what they are talking to each day is the fungus talking through her body. She is simply a test subject.

Beginning in a cramped prison cell and eventually opening up into a dangerous trek across the southeast of England, The Girl With All The Gifts is a frantic page-turner and one of the finest modern sci-fi books around.

Buy a copy of The Girl With All the Gifts here!

The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya

Translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell 

This dystopian fantasy is often compared with Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

Set two hundred years after the end of civilisation, The Slynx follows Benedikt, a lower member of a somewhat middling class who transcribes old books written before “The Blast” and presents them as the words of the new leader.

Benedikt considers himself to be leading a satisfactory life, being neither privileged nor a serf, and is happy to own a house and not have any mutations that are now commonplace in society.

So far he has managed to avoid both the Saniturions, who come for those who show any unwanted sign of Freethinking, and the legendary screeching Slynx that lurks in the wilderness beyond. But is it only a matter of time?

Buy a copy of The Slynx here!

American War by Omar El Akkad

In 2074, the world is in crisis. Most coastal cities are at least partially submerged in the oceans,  certain regions are now wastelands and the United States is in the middle of the second civil war over a few Southern states’ unwillingness to abandon fossil fuels.

The war is vicious, forcing many into refugee camps as the south is sealed off from the north.

One of these camps is Camp Patience, where Sarat Chestnut and her family wind up after her father’s death.

Although she is barely six years old when the war breaks out, through a series of unfortunate events, Sarat grows into an angry and radicalised young woman.

Told from even further in the future by a historian documenting the second civil war, American War is a terrifying glimpse at our future.

Buy a copy of American War here!

Severance by Ling Ma 

An offbeat, satirical novel that’s one part office slice-of-life and two parts wryly funny cataclysm.

Severance follows the story of Candace Chen, a first-generation American millennial who spends her days in New York overseeing the manufacture of Bibles for a publishing company.

Then comes a pandemic of “Shen Fever” – a fictional, fungal infection that causes fever and saps at the consciousness until victims are reduced to a drone-like state and then die.

The city quickly stalls, then grinds to a halt, and before long Candace is left alone in New York, unfevered and seemingly immune, taking pictures of the now abandoned ghost town.

Eventually a group of survivors sweep through, led by former IT technician Bob, who bring Candace along on their way to “the Facility”, which Bob promises to be a haven where society can begin anew.

But Candace has a secret that will cause her serious trouble. Should she stay with this group of “saviours”?

Buy a copy of Severance here!

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

I Am Legend is a 1954 novel that defined the concepts of global plague and post-apocalyptic fiction, and this novel’s particular plague has wiped out untold numbers of people and turned the rest into vampires.

One man survives, locked away in his LA home. And over the course of the novel, he, the last human in a society of vampires, becomes the titular legend. He is now the vampire in a society that has normalised vampirism.

This is a clever inversion of vampire mythology. In a world where every surviving person is now a vampire, the one human is, himself, the vampire; the legend; the other.

Of all the post-apocalyptic novels here, I Am Legend is one of the most wholly unique, while also wonderfully adhering to the traditions of vampire lore: blood-sucking, garlic, and crucifixes.

Buy a copy of I Am Legend here!

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

Translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside

Originally published in Germany, The Wall stands as a meditation on isolation, humanity, and the practicalities of self-sufficient survival.

Our protagonist, an unnamed middle-aged woman on holiday at a remote hunting lodge in Austria, awakens one day to find that her two companions have disappeared and that she is alone.

Completely alone, it seems, as she appears to be trapped in her environment by an invisible wall of unknown origin.

The Wall follows the woman’s trials and troubles as she adjusts to solitude and learns to make the most of the land she has been left seemingly in charge of.

As she gradually begins to forget arbitrary concepts, such as the taste of sugar or the use of her own name, she is left wondering if she will ever meet another human being again.

Buy a copy of The Wall here!

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

When infrastructure falls to pieces and resources run out, will your society endure? This is the subject of Moon of the Crusted Snow, as we follow a small northern Anishinaabe community through times of strife and hardship.

When food reserves become scarce, and community members struggle to maintain order, outsiders from the south begin to arrive; refugees from their own defunct nation.

With more people come more problems, and soon the former leaders are replaced by the newcomers. But the tensions, and the death toll, keep rising.

Will those frustrated by mounting chaos be able to take control and return to tradition, turning the tide for the better? As one society dies, another takes its place.

Buy a copy of Moon of the Crusted Snow here!

War with the Newts by Karel Čapek

Translated from the Czech by M and R. Weatherall

War with the Newts is a dark satire that sends up the political ideologies and practises present in the pre-war Europe of 1936, and is considered by many to be classic work of science fiction and dystopia.

On a small island near Sumatra, mankind discovers a species of giant, intelligent Newts (sometimes translated as Salamanders), and begins to exploit and manipulate them for the benefit of humanity.

However, over time the Newts learn and progress to such an extent that they begin to rival the humans’ place at the top of the animal kingdom.

Told at times in the style of an anthropological study, all of society’s many aspects are up for ridicule here, and Čapek pulls no punches with fascism, journalism, capitalism and even Hollywood all in the firing line.

The novel was blacklisted by the Nazis in 1940 in Germany.

Buy a copy of War With the Newts here!

The Blood of Angels by Johanna Sinisalo

Translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers

Technically not post-apocalyptic, however, the world that unfolds in The Blood of Angels is certainly on the brink of total collapse. Why?

Because all the bees are disappearing. Some are dying, typically the queens, but whole colonies of bees are simply vanishing into thin air.

Crops can no longer be effectively pollinated and most country’s crops are in decline. Only the essentials are available, while the world fights over resources.

In remote Finland, which has yet to be hit by the crisis, beekeeper Orvo, discovers that his hives are suffering from colony collapse. At the same time, he is reeling from another unfathomable personal tragedy.

Told in alternating perspectives between Orvo and his son’s eco-blog, The Blood of Angels explores the themes of social responsibility and grief.

It also veers into sci-fi when Orvo makes an incredible discovery about the disappearances.

Buy a copy of The Blood of Angels here!

From timeless classics to modern love stories, and spicy tales these romance books cater to every taste, whisking you away on unforgettable journeys through the complexities of human connection. As you immerse yourself in these enchanting tales, you’ll discover why these romantic novels (including queer romance novels) have earned their place among the most beloved and cherished works of fiction.

The Best Romance Books from Around the World

Make yourself comfortable, let the warmth of these stories from around the world envelop you, and prepare to embark on a literary adventure that will leave you yearning for more.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

As classic romance novels go, North and South is an oft-overlooked masterpiece of the genre. A 19^th Century love story set against the very prominent backdrop of the British Industrial Revolution.

In the northern factory town of Milton, the love story follows a refined young southern woman named Margaret Hale who arrives in Milton and struggles with the town’s industrial way of life.

One of the captains of the industry, and our love interest, is Mr Thornton, a crass and aggressively spoken northern man who owns a cotton factory.

The love story here is very reminiscent of that between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, only with the added political vigour that examines the class divide between, well, north and south – a divide that still continues to this day.

North and South also has one of the best TV miniseries adaptations ever filmed, starring the smouldering Richard Armitage as Mr Thornton. Definitely give it a watch!

Beach Read by Emily Henry

From the author of Book Lovers, Beach Read follows the story of two struggling writers, Augustus Everett, a literary fiction author, and January Andrews, a bestselling romance novelist, who find themselves as neighbors in beach houses for the summer.

With their careers stalled by writer’s block, they strike a deal to break free from their creative ruts: Augustus will write a happy story, while January attempts the next Great American Novel.

As they embark on unconventional field trips and challenge each other’s writing styles, they try to stick to their pact that no one will fall in love.

This heartwarming and witty tale explores the unexpected paths to creativity and the power of embracing new perspectives while offering a satisfying enemies-to-lovers romance.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Predictable as it might be, Jane Eyre is undeniably one of the greatest romance novels ever written and bound.

The Bronte sisters were a unique flavour amongst their contemporaries, providing us with raw, often brutal, always sublime gothic and romance novels that stood head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is an absolute treasure, and a classic romance novel that, in terms of its pacing, hasn’t aged a day. A punchy love story fraught with aggression and tempestuous shifts in tone, Jane Eyre is flawless.

Our titular narrator Jane Eyre is a girl orphaned at a young age, living with her uncle’s family. Her childhood is not pleasant, but when she eventually finds a chance at work as a governess.

The job takes her to Thornfield Hall and the enigmatic Mr Rochester, master of the house. Their story is not a smooth one; instead it is intense, fiery, and at times frightening – filled with twists and turns that make it a true classic and one of the very best romance books – indeed one of the very best Western novels – ever written.

Read More: 14 Books like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

If you like your romance novels to be heavy on the lust, and to have a fantastical element to them, you need to read A Dowry of Blood.

This gothic romance is written from the perspective of Dracula’s bride, Constanta; how he saved her, how she fell in love with him, and how (centuries later), she killed him.

A Dowry of Blood is gothic romance done perfectly. These are people driven by love and lust and a thirst for blood. They hate and curse each other but cannot live without each other.

Cursed love, burning desire, sensuality — these things drive the novel forward and it is glorious to watch.

Read More: 15 Best Modern French Novels

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Kitty Garstin has gone through several failed attempts at love and marriage before arriving in a sudden and loveless marriage with the bacteriologist Walter Fane.

Most of the novel is set in mainland China, where Fane has placed himself in the thick of a cholera epidemic with a view to studying the disease and helping its dying victims.

It’s a tragic setting, and it doesn’t tick any boxes regarding typical romance books. But the beauty and genius of the romance in this novel comes in the form of Kitty learning to love her new husband through observing his actions and the risks he takes, and he likewise learning to appreciate the help that she offers.

It’s not a love story for the faint of heart, and certainly not a typical romance novel, but The Painted Veil is nonetheless a unique and incredible work of fiction, and one of the great romance books of its time.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I don’t care what you say; there is no way to have a discussion about the best romance books and not mention Pride and Prejudice.

In fact, confession time: I only read this book recently, shortly before turning 30, which might be illegal – I haven’t checked. But it was reading Pride and Prejudice that inspired this list, so here we are.

Pride and Prejudice is as good as everyone says. In fact, it’s better. A lot of the discourse gets lost in a loop of praise being helped on it for being one of the great romance novels.

But it’s more than that: Pride and Prejudice is a sharp, witty, sarcastic, biting, scathing, sardonic gem on a novel that relentlessly pokes fun at everything from the class system to patriarchal values; from stuffy English tradition to family life.

There are few books of their time as funny, clever, and scathing as Pride and Prejudice. And what makes it even more perfect is that there lies a truly perfect romantic tale beneath all of this scorn.

The story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy really is as compelling, engaging, and captivating as everyone says.

If you’ve been put off from reading Pride and Prejudice due to too much hype, let all of that go and read it.  It is one of the best romance books, classic or otherwise.

Read More: 10 Great Books for Fans of Normal People

At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano

Translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter

At the End of the Matinee is a curious romance novel. Written by a man with a view to being international, while also evoking the tone and tropes of 19th Century English novels like Jane Eyre and the works of Jane Austen, there’s nothing quite like this Japanese romance novel.

The story follows two protagonists: a man approaching forty who works as an internationally celebrated classical guitarist, and a woman in her early forties who is a respected journalist living in Paris.

He is touted as a musical genius, and she is the daughter of a Japanese woman and a Croatian film director. Both are fascinating people.

They meet after one of his concerts in Tokyo and, while she is engaged to an American man whom she has known for many years, the two become infatuated with one another.

They travel, work, and find their fates entangled.

At the End of the Matinee is a will-they-won’t-they love story that uses classical romance tropes while also innovating with its characters and setting.

Gorgeously translated by the outstanding Juliet Winters Carpenter, this is a modern classic of a Japanese romance novel.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

When it first came out, the hype around this book could not be ignored, particularly as it originally started as a Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren) AU fanfic.

The Love Hypothesis revolves around Olive Smith, a third-year Ph.D. candidate who doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships.

To convince her best friend Anh otherwise, Olive impulsively kisses the first man she sees: Adam Carlsen, a young, attractive, and notoriously difficult professor.

Surprisingly, Adam agrees to be her fake boyfriend and maintain the charade.

However, when a critical science conference threatens Olive’s career, Adam’s unwavering support brings their pretend relationship dangerously close to combustion.

In this charming and addictive story, Olive learns that love is far more complicated than any scientific hypothesis, and understanding her own heart proves to be the most challenging experiment of all.

Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara

There is a lot of love and romance in Greek mythology, and a lot of jealousy and betrayal, too. Psyche and Eros stands out, however, by being a love story first and foremost.

This is the talle of a god and a human falling in love, against all odds. Psyche, princess of Mycenae, trained to fight and hunt by the argonaut Atalanta, is swept up in a romance with Eros, the god of love himself.

The novel’s opening chapters establish who our two protagonists are, and Eros’ chapters in particular paint a picture of how the gods came to be. The story of Gaia, Kronos, Zeus, and all the messiness they wrought.

When Aphrodite, who has forced Eros into her servitude, orders him to curse a beautiful human woman, the god of love makes a careless mistake and curses himself by mistake. That curse causes him to love Psyche.

Not just love her, but to have her wrenched from him if ever she looks at him.

Psyche and Eros pits the cursed titular protagonists against an entire world of gods and humans.

Greece and Troy are on the brink of war; the gods are, as usual, committing cruelties our of jealousy and bitterness, and our lovers must wade through all of this while dealing with a curse that will destroy their love forever.

Buy a copy of Psyche and Eros here!

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

On its surface, this Japanese novel concerns an odd and unique slowly blossoming romance between a disenchanted salary woman in Tokyo and an older man: a former schoolteacher whom she chances to meet once again as an adult.

The story of Tsukiko and Sensei is truly one of the ages: a rough and turbulent story that is often battered by the winds of change.

This is because, on a deeper level, Strange Weather in Tokyo is about finding an equilibrium between the lost Japan of old – the pre-war Japan of ancient traditions which Sensei hailed from – and the modern, fast-paced, fast-paced, neon-lit Japan of today which Tsukiko represents.

What makes their love story work so elegantly is how each protagonist supports and teaches the other: Tsukiko is exhausted by modern life, and her love for Sensei helps her appreciate a slower, calmer pace.

Meanwhile, Tsukiko ensures that Sensei doesn’t get washed away by the waves of modern life.

Read More: Our Review of Strange Weather in Tokyo

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Translated from the Japanese by Megan Backus

One of the best things about Kitchen – something that stands out amongst other romance books – is that it was so ahead of its time. Or, at least, it was courageously of its time when most other books and movies fail to be.

Kitchen follows the tragic life of Mikage Sakurai, a young woman raised by her grandmother who, after the loss of said grandmother, finds a home with a young man: Yuichi Tanabe.

What makes this novel so ahead of its time isn’t the romance between these two characters, but rather the role of Yuichi’s transgender mother, who is easily the novel’s most complex and compelling character.

The love story in this Japanese novel is not an easy one. Death obstructs love at every turn, and Yoshimoto never loses sight of her protagonists being young, growing, and grieving people.

Read More: Our Review of Kitchen

XOXO by Axie Oh

This wholesome YA novel XOXO centres on Jenny, a dedicated cellist who unexpectedly falls for Jaewoo, a K-pop idol, after a chance meeting in Los Angeles.

Their paths cross again in Seoul when Jenny attends an elite performing arts academy.

With Jaewoo’s dating restrictions as a K-pop star, they must decide if their love is worth risking their careers and friendships.

A contemporary forbidden romance, XOXO will immerse you in the K-pop industry and make you fall in love with Seoul through sumptuous descriptions of food and surroundings,

Read More: 12 Best K-Pop Novels

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

This choice is perhaps a bit of a sneaky one, because while The Housekeeper and the Professor can and should be called a novel about love, it is not a love story.

The titular professor is an aged mathematician who is incapable of retaining long-term information. He goes through housekeepers like toilet paper because none can stand the stress of working for him for long.

His newest housekeeper, and our protagonist, is a single mother with enough kindness and patience to form a bond with this difficult and troubled genius.

Thus, in the professor, our protagonist finds an indispensable friend, and her son finds a pseudo-father figure in a man who forgets him from one day to the next. Romantic, no, but a story about love. Absolutely.

Read More: Our Review of The Housekeeper and the Professor

Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue

Translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen

Consider Love in the New Millennium the wild card of this list. A deeply satirical, surreal, and subversive novel about modern life for a group of women in today’s China.

In writing a book that so confidently satirises daily life in China, Can Xue took some bold risks.

While it isn’t a book about a single romance, Love in the New Millennium is nevertheless a book about love, romance, sex, and relationships.

It examines how we love one another in an age of surveillance and transience. It looks at what shapes romance and love can take in the modern age.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

Sarah J Maas is the queen of YA fantasy. Whether you’re a fan of the genre or just someone with a passing knowledge of it, you’ll know the name Sarah J Maas.

Skyrocketed to fame by her series Throne of Glass, she has worn the crown ever since. Her series A Court of Thorns and Roses (which begins with the novel of the same name) begins with protagonist Feyre — a forest-dwelling hunter — fighting and killing a wolf for its prey.

The wolf, however, turns out to be a faerie, and Feyre must pay for its murder. This event thrusts Feyre into the twisted and mythic faerie world which she must help save from an ancient curse.

An intense love between two dark characters; a folklore-inspired world of fairies, magic, and curses, a young and beautiful but deadly protagonist. What more could you ask for?

The Court Dancer by Kyung-sook Shin

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

The Court Dancer is, in many ways, a modern Korean response to the classic European romance novels.

The Court Dancer is a book that, on the surface, celebrates a chance encounter and the blossoming love and passion which emerges from it, but look a little deeper and you’ll find a book that deals with the scars of colonialism and a warning sign against the exoticism and sexualisation of other cultures.

The romance of this clever Korean novel is front and centre: a French diplomat of the 19^th Century has journeyed to Korea during the later years of the Joseon Dynasty.

There, he has fallen quickly and passionately for a young woman who has already seen so much upheaval and personal tragedy – a young woman now serving as a court dancer.

Whisked away to France with her new love, our court dancer must learn to understand her place in the world, her newfound romance, and what home means. And all of that is before the scathing exploration of European colonialism takes centre stage.

Essential Queer Romance Novels

Diversity and representation in literature have never been more important, and the realm of romance novels is no exception.

Our selection of the best queer romance books showcases the beauty and complexity of love in all its forms, transcending boundaries and celebrating the power of connection.

These stories capture the hearts of readers with their unforgettable characters and heartwarming relationships

Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

Love in the Big City could fall under the “Asian Romance Novels” and “Queer Romance Novels” since it’s both. But, like many of the romance novels on this list, actually calling it romance is a little messy.

Though, make no mistake, this is a Korean novel about love.

First, it’s about platonic love — the love between two hedonistic best friends at university, enjoying all the flavours of life: food, alcohol, cigarettes, and sex.

But, after a time, one grows up and gets married, leaving the other — our protagonist — to choose how he is going to live his own young, gay, good life.

Love in the Big City also explores familial love through the relationship between Young and his mother, before finally leaning into romantic love as he lets himself fall in love in his own way.

This love is difficult, rocky, and harsh, but it is still love and it is still romance. Sometimes.

This novel does not shy away from the shadows of love and romance, which is what makes it so earnest and beautiful as a queer romance novel.

There is so much here that is cruel and nasty, but a love for life and for people wins out in the end.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This is a beautiful, poetic piece of science fiction lesbian romance. A short and tender novel that blends intense sci-fi world-building with lyrical moments of romantic expression between two agents of warring factions.

Our protagonists, Red and Blue, are two women working for different agencies of a far future, in which they fight for control of time itself.

The two agents leave letters for one another, at first as flirtatious taunts, and soon as bold declarations of their love for, and addiction to one another.

This is How You Lose the Time War shifts between chapters detailing what Red or Blue is up to and letters written from one to the other. These letters express passionate, loud statements of adoration that melt your heart.

The fun and complex world-building of this far future only supports the concept that love, the simplest thing to understand, conquers even the most complex ideas.

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Wolfsong, the first in TJ Klune’s Green Creek series of fantasy books, is a novel that answers the question, “What if Twilight was gay and also good?”

Klune is known for blending queer romance with urban fantasy, and this is his most expansive queer romantic fantasy story yet, spanning four lengthy books.

Wolfsong is the first book in that series, and it is predominantly a gay romance between a boy named Ox — who grew up in a small, rural Oregon town — and the youngest son of a pack of werewolves.

Around the time Ox turns sixteen, the Bennett family moves in next door. They are a mother, father, three boys, and the father’s brother.

Ox, whose own father abandoned him, soon learns that the Bennetts are not only shapeshifters, but that his friend and boss, Gordo, already knows them. and that Gordo is also a witch.

Ox and Joe, the youngest of three boys, become tethered together in an intense friendship that soon blossoms into a vicious, feral kind of romance.

Wolfsong is a queer fantasy romance full of bloodshed, revenge, cruelty, and savage love. One of the most intense and best romance books of recent years.

Buy a copy of Wolfsong here!

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

This is a uniquely important novel. A queer romance, this is a book that centres around a sexuality often criminally underexposed but nevertheless part of the queer canon: asexuality.

Let’s Talk About Love introduces us to Alice, our asexual protagonist, who is all but done with love and relationships until she meets the handsome and endearing Takumi.

Sweet, approachable, endearing, and fun; Let’s Talk About Love is a fantastic queer romance novel that deserves even more love and attention than it’s already getting.

Read More: Best Queer Graphic Novels and Manga

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

A slow-burn gay romance, The House in the Cerulean Sea, Linus Baker, a solitary Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, is tasked with a top-secret assignment: assessing the potential threat posed by six unique children living in Marsyas Island Orphanage.

As he uncovers the island’s secrets and grows closer to the enigmatic caretaker, Arthur Parnassus, Linus discovers an unexpected family and must choose between destroying their home or risking the world’s end.

This heartwarming tale highlights the power of found family and the profound impact of love and acceptance.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

From the author of the highly successful Red, White & Royal Blue, we have another light-hearted and witty romance novel that successfully captures the fizzing energy of meeting someone for the first time and knowing that they are your person.

Unfortunately, when August meets Jane on the subway, it is not a straightforward romance since Jane is displaced in time from the 1970s and August has to help her.

The interesting concept of One Last Stop offers a lot of insight into historic queer culture across the US during the 70s and keeps you hooked as you get more and more invested in a happy ending for these cute lesbian lovers.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her.”

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows the story of Monique Grant, an unknown magazine reporter chosen by reclusive Hollywood icon Evelyn Hugo to write her biography.

As Monique delves into Evelyn’s glamorous and scandalous life, she uncovers tales of ambition, friendship, and forbidden love spanning from the 1950s to the 1980s.

As the two women form a connection, it becomes apparent that their lives intersect in tragic and irreversible ways.

This captivating novel takes readers on a journey through old Hollywood, exploring the harsh realities of fame and the struggle of confronting the truth, no matter the cost.

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

This is perhaps a controversial choice, especially given that its author is not gay, but it is nonetheless one of the most celebrated modern gay romance novels.

Call Me By Your Name exploded in popularity thanks to its recent film adaptation, but the novel is also beloved by fans worldwide.

The novel follows a summer romance between two young men in 1980s Italy, and the lives of these protagonists over the subsequent fifteen years.

It’s a story of young love and self-discovery that received enormous critical acclaim, as did its film adaptation.

While I have my reservations about a gay romance novel being penned by a straight man, it is nevertheless a novel that resonates with so many, and will surely be heralded as a future classic among gay romance novels.

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Casey McQuiston’s captivating story demonstrates that true love transcends diplomacy. Red, White & Royal Blue explores the unlikely romance between America’s First Son, Alex Claremont-Diaz, and the Prince of Wales, Henry.

As charismatic and charming as Alex is, his rivalry with Henry threatens to damage U.S./British relations when a tabloid photo exposes their altercation.

In an attempt to control the situation, a staged truce turns into a blossoming secret romance that could derail political campaigns and upend both nations.

This delightful and witty queer romance novel poses the question: can love save the world, and how do we find the courage to embrace our true selves?

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is a witty and steamy queer romantic comedy that follows Delilah Green, a successful photographer who reluctantly returns to her hometown, Bright Falls, to photograph her estranged stepsister Astrid’s wedding.

Upon her return, Delilah encounters Claire Sutherland, Astrid’s reserved best friend and a single mother running a bookstore.

As Delilah becomes entwined in wedding preparations, including a scheme to save Astrid from her terrible fiancé, she discovers unexpected chemistry with Claire.

Despite their differences and Claire’s initial reluctance, the two find themselves drawn to each other, challenging their preconceptions about love and relationships.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

We previously mentioned If I Was Your Girl on our list of trans books by trans writers, and it bears repeating it here on a list of the best romance books for the same reason: it’s spellbinding.

Meredith Russo is a trans woman who took her own experiences and funnelled them into the protagonist of If I Was Your Girl.

In this delightful trans novel, Amanda has moved to a new school and has fallen for a boy named Grant. She has disclosed to no-one, including Grant, the secret that she is trans, and lives in fear of that secret coming out, and what it will mean for her life at her new school and her blossoming romance with Grant.

This is a queer romance story for the ages; a book written by a trans woman about a trans woman, and a book that can help both young trans and cis people alike.

Read More: 9 Transgender Stories by Trans Writers

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

It might still be a very new novel, by The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is a delightfully hedonistic romp of a gay romance novel.

What sets it apart from so many of its contemporaries is how much it enjoys itself; this book is less concerned with sorrowful pining or unrequited love.

Instead, it’s a celebration of romance wrapped up in one of the most delightful historic romance novels of today.

Telling the story of an 18^th Century British lord touring Europe with his best friend for whom he harbours an intense lust.

Winner of the 9th Book Shorts Award, hosted by the Short Shorts Film Festival and ASIA, Sunset Road is a humbling, tear-jerking short story about family and forgiveness.

Sunset Road is a short story inspired by the Japanese children’s song Kono Michi (This Road), and traces the memories and experiences of a twenty-eight-year-old man who has just learned that his estranged father has suffered a stroke.

Read the story here

Sunset Road

Though the stroke was caught early and he is stable, signs point to early-onset dementia (a theme in many of Tamaki’s stories).

As a child, protagonist Takaaki’s father was an abusive and violent drunk; his behaviour eventually drove Takaaki’s mother away, leaving him with a father who promised to clean himself up.

At eighteen, Takaaki left home and never looked back. Now, soon to be a father himself, Takaaki must wrestle with taking responsibility for his own father, whose health and mental state will only continue to decline.

Sunset Road begins with an isolated paragraph that sets the scene, opening with the difficult words, “When I was a boy, my mother left the family home…”

This opening, separated from the rest of the story and speaking directly to the audience, demonstrates the ties that Takaaki has had to cut from his father, after his mother did the same to him.

This is a family that was torn apart by abuse, but also a family of turned backs; people who have walked away from one another for the sake of self-preservation.

The rest of this Japanese short story, however, is written not to the audience but to Takaaki’s father directly, from “I” to “you”.

This decision to switch audience represents an olive branch; Takaaki is reaching out to his father, confessing his feelings and revealing his memories, in the hope that it isn’t too late to make amends and move on.

With the revelation that his father has dementia, moving on might not be possible, but time only moves forwards and so Takaaki must do what he can with what he has.

Given the fact that he himself will soon be a father, he is thinking responsibly; he is showing care and consideration and love. He is being a good example for the child he must very soon care for and raise right.

As the story progresses, we move almost haphazardly between the present and various points in the past, feeling our protagonist’s panicked and disjointed thoughts and feelings as he does.

Anxiety is sending his thoughts in different directions, casting his memories back to his most painful moments, and we must go with him.

The feeling of piggybacking on Takaaki’s story makes us, the readers, feel responsible for him, as though we must help and comfort him as best we can, even if that simply means listening to his story and sharing his pain.

Sunset Road is only 2000 words in length, and yet there are multiple moments that will catch you off-guard and draw a tear from your eye.

The child that will soon be brought into this world by Takaaki and his wife Nao behaves like a spectre over this story, a heavy thing that encourages Takaaki to make the right choices for the sake of the future — that of himself, the family that raised him, and the family he is also building with his wife.

Family, trauma, childhood, sickness, regret — these are all relatable feelings and experiences. They are universal. In that way, this story feels like a lesson in empathy but also a handbook for what we might one day have to also face.

Translated with emotional tact and skill by Sharni Wilson, Sunset Road is a beautiful meditation on family, personal growth, and how we learn to bury the past for the sake of our future.

This means that a lot of stereotyping goes on with regards to the themes, events, characters, and subject matter of shoujo manga. Typically, shoujo manga involves cute magical girls, romance (usually heterosexual), and slice-of-life stories involving middle or high school girls.

The Best Shoujo Manga

Here are some of the best shoujo manga, both classic and contemporary, for fans of the genre to check out right now. Some of these very much meet the stereotypes, while others fall outside of it, offering something fresh and experimental. Enjoy!

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya

Few shoujo manga have as much of a beloved fanbase as Fruits Basket. This is a series that received a decent enough anime adaptation many years ago and has since received the ‘brotherhood treatment’ with impeccable results.

Natsuki Takaya’s classic shoujo manga tells the story of Tohru Honda, a girl who lost her mother and now lives in a tent in the woods. Tohru is certainly down on her luck but she keeps on smiling regardless. She is the epitome of a glass-half-full character, clinging to hope as much as her strength will allow.

One day, Tohru stumbles upon the home of her classmate, Yuki Soma: a traditional and secluded Japanese house. Yuki’s older brother, Shigure, is a laid-back stay-at-home author who welcomes Tohru into their home. The Soma family secret is soon discovered, however, and Tohru is burdened with the knowledge that each member of the family is possessed by an animal of the Chinese zodiac.

When hugged by a member of the opposite sex, members of the Soma clan suddenly transform into their animal form, often resulting in awkward and hilarious situations. The series goes to some very dark and strange places, with the cat character, Kyo, being the most endearing and fascinating member of this shoujo manga’s cast.

Fruits Basket is a reverse-harem slice-of-life romance manga for the ages, and a beloved classic of the shoujo manga genre.

Buy a copy of Fruits Basket here!

Skip and Loafer by Misaki Takamatsu

One of the key ingredients for a good shoujo manga is charm. Charm beats out even romance where shoujo is concerned. Skip and Loafer has charm coming out of every pore. There is a wide-eyed sweetness, as well as a goofiness, to our protagonist, which is emphasised by her unique appearance.

Iwakura is drawn differently from the other characters on the roster, with her expression being more minimalist and blank, reminiscent of Mob Psycho 100. The fact that even her face elicits a laugh (but not in a cruel or mocking way) is charming. Then there is the focus on friendship over romance.

Our other protagonist, Shima, is a delightful himbo that every girl crushes on, and he has chosen to befriend Iwakura on her first day at school. In fact, it’s her first day in Tokyo, having grown up in the sticks. A lot goes wrong, and Shima is there to lend a hand (although he’s not great at doing so).

This is a shoujo manga that blends the slice-of-life and romance genres into something hilarious, warming, and entertaining. The stellar English translation carries that comedy and charm across every line and page, and a consistently growing cast of characters keeps us engaged chapter after chapter.

Buy a copy of Skip and Loafer here!

Ao Haru Ride by Io Sakisaka

Also known by its English title Blue Spring Ride, this is a shoujo manga that epitomises the will-they-won’t-they narrative. It injects grounded, often harsh and dark, themes and events to offer readers a romance story with real weight and substance.

Ao Haru Ride is a fairly beloved romance manga with a dedicated following, especially in Japan. The story follows sixteen-year-old Futaba whose first love has returned from a long stint of living in Nagasaki. However, Kou is not the boy she remembers; he is now aloof and guarded. We soon learn that this is because, while living in Nagasaki, Kou lost his mother.

Ao Haru Ride is a mature and hard-hitting shoujo story that really showcases how life throws down obstacles to happiness, and how we often build those obstacles ourselves due to naivete, self-destructive tendencies, and an inability to see the future or read the past. This is a series with plenty of twists and turns that are worth experiencing first-hand, and a romance manga that comes highly recommended.

Buy a copy of Ao Haru Ride here!

Love Me, Love Me Not by Io Sakisaka

While Ao Haru Ride is this shoujo mangaka’s most celebrated work, her newer manga Love Me, Love Me Not is refreshingly unique amongst shoujo manga. Drawn in her iconic bubbly, soft, and (at this point) retro style, but featuring more believable and grounded problems and personalities, Love Me, Love Me Not really sets itself apart.

We have a pair of protagonists, Yuna and Akari. When they meet, they have each said goodbye to a best friend who moved away and are about to start at the same high school. Yuna is a head-in-the-clouds romantic who believes in waiting for her perfect true love. Akari, however, “meets love head-on”. She’s full of confidence and a lust for life.

The quiet, shy romantic versus the flirtatious and curious realist. This romance manga’s creator has made it clear that neither is right or wrong, which is why they share the spotlight as protagonists. Akari also has a brother, Rio, whom Yuna immediately romanticises as a beautiful prince, and Yuna has a childhood friend, Inui, whom Akari believes would be perfect for Yuna.

Early on, Akari is dumped by her long-distance boyfriend and rumours of her flirtatious nature start to spread. The drama here is real, relatable, and sometimes difficult. But it being drawn in a cute and muted ’90s style gives this romance manga a comforting warmth, as does Yuna’s sweet — if childish — romanticism.

But this is a shoujo manga that is just as much about female friendships as it is about love and romance. Yuna and Akari’s relationship is the most important and interesting one of the manga. They grow together and learn from each other, and that’s what helps this manga stand out so well against a sea of cookie-cutter romance stories.

Buy a copy here!

Nana by Ai Yazawa

Nana Komatsu was born in a small town which she describes as being neither a small village nor a bustling city. She is a middle child, neither rich nor poor. Entirely ordinary. And her older boyfriend is leaving her for Tokyo.

Nana Oosaki doesn’t remember her parents. She was raised by a sarcastic grandmother who worked her hard, and now she is the frontwoman of a punk band called BLAST. And her bassist boyfriend is leaving her for Tokyo. These two Nanas, when they each reach the age of 20, decide to move to Tokyo, one pursuing big dreams of a name in lights, the other looking for love.

They meet on a train and, against all odds, become friends first, then roommates. Nana is a dynamic and sweet slice of life manga, and a masterwork of the shoujo manga space. Essential reading for any fan of shoujo or slice-of-life manga.

Buy a copy of Nana here!

Nichijou by Keiichi Arawa

Nichijou is a shoujo manga masterpiece that takes the very concept of “slice-of-life” and plays with it in a very meta, constantly hilarious way.  Set in the town of Tokisadame, Nichijou (Everyday) centres around two main groups of characters: a group of three young schoolgirls and an odd trio made up of a child professor, her hand-built robot, and a talking cat.

Despite the second trio’s strangeness being seen from a mile away, the three schoolgirls of this slice of life manga are just as eccentric. One is deadpan serious, the second is cheerful to a fault, and the third is wildly emotive.

Each chapter of Nichijou sets up a fairly ordinary scenario — one that is relatable or, at least, understandable and reasonable — but that scenario quickly morphs and deteriorates into absurdity. Almost without fail, the events of each chapter will have your guts in knots.

Buy a copy of Nichijou here!

My Love Mix-Up by Aruko and Wataru Hinekure

What we typically know as a “love triangle” isn’t actually a triangle at all; it is one person trying to choose between two others. If you’re after a true love triangle, you need to read My Love Mix-Up!. This funny and sweet shoujo manga about high school kids crushing on each other is proud of just how silly and charming it is.

Here you have two boys — Aoki and Ida — and a girl, Hashimoto. Aoki likes Hashimoto but he learns quickly that she has her eye on Ida instead. Through a clumsy bit of miscommunication, Ida comes to believe that it’s Aoki who likes him, not Hashimoto. Having never crushed on anyone before, he’s open to the idea that he might be gay.

And so he begins to form a strong attachment to Aoki, whom he still thinks has a crush on him. So now we have Aoki crushing on Hashimoto, who is crushing on Ida, who is now crushing on Aoki. That’s a proper love triangle.

Twists and turns also come pretty frequently as this fun dynamic develops further, and we get to enjoy these sweet archetypal characters (especially the adorable himbo Aoki). These characters are fun to follow and root for, and the wholesome nature of this romance manga means that the stakes are low while the humour is high.

If you like your love stories on the sweet and charming side, rather than the heartbreaking soap opera-esque drama, My Love Mix-Up! is the romance manga for you.

Buy a copy here!

Horimiya by Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara

Originally known as Hori-san to Miyamura-kun, Horimiya is a charming and wholesome romance manga, originally written and drawn by Hiroki Adachi (Hero) before being adapted and redrawn by Daisuke Hagiwara. Horimiya also has a hugely popular romance anime adaptation, and the anime has proven to be a truly outstanding adaptation of the original manga source material.

The Horimiya manga follows the quickly-blossoming romance between high-schoolers Kyoko Hori and Izumi Miyamura. She is a popular honour student with a secret home life packed with responsibility and raising her adorable little brother.

He is an introverted, all but invisible middle-of-the-road student with a secret private life as a tattooed and pierced himbo. Horimiya is one of the most popular romance manga ever written. What has helped it succeed so splendidly is how well-developed its two protagonists are.

Their dramas, issues, dreams, and daily lives as individuals are fleshed out and given real attention. Pile a romance on top of this and you have two characters that you not only care about, but whose romance is a joy to watch unfold.

Their romance also moves forward refreshingly quickly and smoothly, as opposed to those seen in the majority of romance manga. Horimiya is a comedy romance manga, but the comedy serves more to keep the story light rather than to be laugh-out-loud funny. Come for the romance and stay for the chuckles.

Buy a copy of Horimiya here!

Our Wonderful Days by Kei Hamuro

Our Wondferful Days is a sweet, charming, and wholesome shoujo manga about four high school girls living their lives and growing closer in a beautiful and peaceful rural setting. In elementary school, Koharu and Mafuyu were best friends, but Mafuyu moved to Tokyo for several years.

Now that she’s back the two quickly rekindle their friendship and we watch through happy tears as that friendship gradually and tenderly blossoms into something more. Blending the shoujo, slice-of-life, and yuri genres of manga together, Our Wonderful Days is something very special. Heartwarming and serene, it will calm your nerves and warm your heart.

Then there’s Kei Hamuro’s artwork, which reminds us of the tranquil elegance and beauty of the Japanese countryside on almost every single panel. This is such a tender tale of female friendship, of self-discovering, and of young love, set against a stunning backdrop of rolling hills and quiet rural homes. Beautiful in so many different ways, Our Wonderful Days is an essential shoujo manga.

Buy a copy of Our Wonderful Days here!

Orange by Ichigo Takano

Orange straddles quite a few genres, including romance, slice-of-life, and even the supernatural. It’s also a short manga, available in two oversized volumes that you can binge over a weekend. This makes Orange a satisfyingly complete and focussed manga experience.

The story of Orange closely follows a group of friends, the main character of which is high-schooler Naho Takamiya. At the start of a new school year, Naho receives a letter from someone who claims to be her future self. Future Naho explains that her biggest regret was her failure to save the life of a boy named Kakeru Naruse.

The letter has arrived on this particular day because it is the same day that Kakeru joins their school in Matsumoto from his former life in Tokyo. Kakeru is quickly assimilated into Naho’s group of friends, becoming their sixth member.

The letter which Naho received is filled with a list of detailed instructions on how to save Kakeru’s life. Naho must decide whether or not to trust and follow these instructions each day. Meanwhile, in the future, Naho is married to Hiroto, and we are occasionally sent forward into their life as they reminisce about their high school days ten years ago, and about their now late friend Kakeru.

Orange is a beautiful, hard-hitting story of love, friendship, mental health, and the responsibilities we have to and for one another.It’s a romance manga, for sure, but it’s also so much more. And Ichigo Takano is a genius mangaka for putting together something as beautiful as Orange.

Buy a copy of Orange here!

Snow White with the Red Hair by Sorata Akizuki

Snow White with the Red Hair (Akagami no Shirayukihime) is a shoujo manga that has been running for an awful long time. If you were sold on Orange in part because of how short and tight it is, getting into something like Snow White with the Red Hair is a big ask. But, for many, it’s worth it.

This fantasy shoujo series follows Shirayuki (literally Snow White) a herbalist of the Tanbarun kingdom. Her story, at the beginning, is very loosely inspired by the Snow White fairy tale.

Shirayuki is a refreshingly capable and self-realised female protagonist who turns down the advances of the local Prince Raji. When she scorns him, cuts her hair, and flees, she falls into the company of the neighbouring kingdom’s Prince Zen.

After saving Zen from a poison apple that was sent from Prince Raji and meant for her, she establishes herself as a herbalist of Zen’s royal court and, to the surprise of nobody, a romance between the two slowly blossoms. If you’re a fan of romance and fantasy manga, as well as European fairy tales, Snow White with the Red Hair is a romance shoujo manga right up your alley.

Buy a copy here!

Maid-sama! by Hiro Fujiwara

Maid Sama! (Kaichou wa Maid-sama! or The Class President is a Maid!) is another hugely popular classic romance manga with an unusual premise. The title of the series certainly paints a particular image which, when peeled back, actually reveals a far more mature romance story.

The titular president/maid is our protagonist: Misaki Ayuzawa. As a student at a school that was once only for male students, Misaki has a lot to prove. She rises to the top and becomes student body president. However, Misaki has a student: in order to help support her sick mother, Misaki works part time at a maid cafe. 

When popular boy Takumi Usui finds out the truth, he keeps it to himself. Usui is intrigued by Misaki and the two soon fall in love.

The story continues to twist and turn from here, so I won’t say anything more, but it does continue to throw a few surprising curveballs. They’re dramatic, sure, but also mature and have a lot of social commentary wrapped up in them. Maid Sama! is another classic romance manga, the reputation of which continues to this day.

Buy a copy of Maid-sama! here!

Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori

Like the modern Kaguya-sama, the classic Ouran High School Host Club (Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu) is a shoujo manga that leans hard on comedy to satirise the tropes and themes of the shoujo genre. In the vein of Shakespearean comedy, Ouran High School Host Club centres around a case of mistaken gender identity.

Haruhi is a student of the titulaer Ouran High School. One day, while looking for a place to study, she stumbles upon the unofficial clubroom of the Host Club.

The Host Club is a small group of boys who play host to female clients by entertaining them with tea and cakes. At first, after breaking something valuable, Haruhi has to work off her debt as the club’s errand boy, before eventually becoming a fully-fledged host herself.

Haruhi’s appearance causes the host boys to mistake her for a boy and, even after the truth comes out, they still want her as a host for her natural ability to charm and entertain the girls of the school. It’s a strange story and, as I said, one that will strike a chord with fans of Shakespeare’s comedies. But this is a series that has endured for years and will go on being a firm favourite of many shoujo manga fans.

Buy a copy here!

For that reason, we’ve done our best to provide as much variety as possible here (and, to that end, this list will be periodically updated).

What does variety mean here? Well, you’ll find a good mix of books about life by women and men; by white writers and writers of colour; by English-language authors and writers in translation from German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and more.

Variety also means a good range of themes and topics explored. These are all life-changing books (or, at least, books with the potential to change your life), but not all of them will be each reader’s cup of tea. And so, variety is necessary.

Some of these books are about living free, without constraint. Some are warnings against living a bad life (and what that means). Others are about life’s meaning and life’s purpose.

Some of these books are positive, hopefully, hedonistic. Others are dark and bleak, but with important lessons to teach.

All of these are books about life, but very much in their own unique way. They’re about work, family, parenthood, friendship. They’re about structure and purpose and motivation. They’re about politics and economics and race and class and feminism.

One final note: this is a list of good books about life. For that reason, you’ll find nothing toxic here. No Jordan Peterson. We’ve also avoided the useless and the over-worshipped. No Paolo Coelho and no Matt Haig.

These are all potentially life-changing books; useful, actionable, inspiring books about life. Enjoy.

Fiction Books About Life

Fiction has the power to teach us great lessons. It uses language and character and tone to inspire empathy and encourage big ideas.

These are all books about life, but each in their own unique way. We’ll discuss here their themes and ideas and characters, and how these things relate to life.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori

The book that put Sayaka Murata on the map as one of the biggest names in Japanese literature, Convenience Store Woman is one of those potentially life changing books that gets readers thinking about what success and personal satisfaction actually mean.

The novel’s protagonist is a woman who has worked for eighteen years at a convenience store. She enjoys her existence as a cog in the machine. She has no aspirations for love and marriage, nor for money and fame.

She does not wish for more responsibilities. She is content with her lot in life, much to the confusion of everyone else in her life, from family to friends to colleagues.

Convenience Store Woman is one of the sharpest books about life, in that it asks us to consider why we want the things we desire. Who are we making happy when we seek promotions, money, and relationships?

How do we find happiness and contentment? These things look different for each of us, and that’s okay. Convenience Store Woman asks big questions about the search for happiness and life satisfaction, making it one of the most truly potentially life changing books of today.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Few books about life in existence are as raw and smart as Kazuo Ishiguro’s magnum opus: Never Let Me Go.

Written by one of the UK’s most beloved and literary authors, Never Let Me Go is a subtly science fiction novel about a woman who grew up in a seemingly peaceful boarding school, and now works as a carer or some kind.

As we search through her memories, we see that she was taught about art and literature, taught to make art and play with others, but life at Hailsham is insular and private, with the outside world remaining a mystery.

Never Let Me Go is, inarguably, one of the biggest and best examples of life changing books ever written. It explores the theme of purpose in myriad ways: the purpose of education, of work, of art, of learning, of discovery, and even the purpose of the human body.

As books about life go, few are as far-reaching and heavy-hitting as Never Let Me Go.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The original science fiction novel, written by a young woman who had not yet hit twenty years of age. An undisputed masterpiece of classic literature and early sci-fi. But Frankenstein is also one of the best books about life you’ll ever read.

I’m a little biased here; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is my favourite novel. But it’s that for a reason: Frankenstein is a novel about human responsibility and hubris.

Frankenstein tells the story of the titular Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who, upon losing his mother, seeks to cure death itself. He forms a new being from body parts and reanimates it, only to run from it in terror.

And here is where the themes come into play. Frankenstein is one of those life-changing books that invites readers to consider our responsibility to one another, as parents and friends and teachers and givers of life.

Frankenstein has the power to resonate with anyone who is responsible for anyone else: parents, older siblings, doctors, teachers, caregivers. It asks us to consider one human’s duty to another; our duty to educate, support, comfort, and guide one another.

There aren’t many books about life as powerful as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

If you know anything about Franz Kafka, this may seem like a strange choice for a list of best books about life. At first. What does a novella about a poor man who turns into a bug have to teach us about life? A lot, actually.

The Metamorphosis is Frank Kafka’s most famous story. It begins with Gregor Samsa, a Czech man who lives with his family. One day, he wakes up to find that he is now a big, ugly beetle.

Samsa’s first thought, however, is fear and frustration. He’s going to be late to work. How will he call his boss? How will he explain this? What if he gets fired?

While it might be absurd and darkly funny, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis has a lot to teach us about our relationship to work; about being servants to capitalism and bureaucracy.

For many who first read The Metamorphosis, it proves to be one of those truly life-changing books; one that has us reevaluating our mental and physical relationships to money and work. A very worthwhile read as books about life go.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi’s second novel is a piece of literary fiction about the migrant experience in the US. But it’s also a book about science and religion, about family and addiction and survival.

Told from the perspective of Gifty, a Black American woman born of migrant parents from Ghana, Transcendent Kingdom flits between Gifty’s current life as a neurobiologist studying addiction and her childhood, one defined by religion and race and poverty.

Transcendent Kingdom is one of those life-changing books that asks us to consider the migrant experience, the effects of racism and prejudice, and the impact of capitalism on the poorest and most marginalised people.

Using Gifty, her mother, her father, and her late big brother as examples, Transcendent Kingdom examines the comforting and corrupting effects of religion on individuals and families. It looks at how the most vulnerable of us turn to addiction.

By being grounded, topical, and relevant to racist, capitalist American life in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Transcendent Kingdom hails itself as one of the best books about life you can read right now.

My Brilliant Life by Ae-ran Kim

Translated from the Korean by Chi-young Kim

While My Brilliant Life might be one of the lesser-known Korean novels in translation, it remains one of the most quietly impactful and life-changing books you could read right now.

My Brilliant Life tells the story of Areum, a boy struck with a degenerative disease. Areum is sixteen and probably won’t live to see eighteen.

Raised by two loving parents in small-town South Korea, Areum has a plan to document his life and that of his parents, then present his finished journal to his parents on his seventeenth birthday.

While this is an undeniable tear-jerker of a Korean novel, it’s also one of the most powerful potentially life-changing books on the shelves. It teaches us to appreciate our days, our experiences, and our families.

My Brilliant Life teaches us how to love well. And, for that reason, it is one of the most incomparable and valuable books about life.

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

Translated from the Spanish by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

The Adventures of China Iron is a very different kind of novel, especially as books about life go. This is an Argentinian novel all about hedonism. It’s also a queer novel about how to love unapologetically and loudly.

Set in the wilds of 19th Century Argentina, The titular China Iron is a young woman who has already been married, had a child, given that child up, and been abandoned.

All of that quickly changes, however, when she is picked up on the road by a Scottish woman driving a horse and cart. Liz gives China Iron a name and invites her to wander, live, love, and laugh with aplomb.

The Adventures of China Iron is one of those life-changing books that serves as a reminder to enjoy yourself. Whatever your gender or sexuality, you deserve happiness. You deserve to enjoy love and sex and passion and adventure, just as China Iron does.

Here’s an anti-patriarchy book that, quite literally, laughs in the face of oppressive masculinity and heteronormativity. For that reason, it’s one of the most glorious books about life.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo

Translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang

This is not one of those books about life that will inspire you. It’s more of a wake-up call to the disparity and cruel imbalances of our world. To put it bluntly, it’s a book about systems of sexism and patriarchy.

But a book like Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 has its place on a list of life-changing books by merit of the lessons it can offer. This is a novelisation of your average woman’s life: a life dictated by unfair disadvantage, societal rules, family pressures, and threats of violence.

While not a pleasant book, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 remains one of those books that change your life for the better. It teaches us to be kinder to women, to fight inequality, to be good feminists, to call out sexism, to march for women’s rights, to be good and righteous.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

This one is a bit of a cliche. It’s certainly not uncommon — and pretty expected — to find Slaughterhouse-Five on a list of books that will change your life, or best life-changing books. But that’s, admittedly, for good reason.

Like most World War I & 2 fiction, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is a kind of parable; an anti-war novel full of loud and clear themes and motifs that beg us to consider the value and meaning of human life.

Admittedly, Slaughterhouse-Five does this in true Vonnegut fashion: through odd symbolism, wacky science fiction, and often funny surrealism. Nevertheless, the themes are striking and the lessons vivid.

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the strongest and best books about life, as it explores the meaninglessness of war and the futility of fate and choice. A powerful novel, to say the least.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

While this is a book that so many (maybe most) of us were made to read in high school (I was also made to teach it), Of Mice and Men remains one of the most poignant books about life ever written. As relevant today as it was a century ago.

Telling the story of two wandering white men in early 20th Century America, Of Mice and Men is a story that debunks and deconstructs the infamous American Dream. It proves the cyclical nature of the capitalist trap, and shows us a life not worth living.

George and Lenny have a plan to cheat the system, to break the cycle, to live free and smart and proud. But capitalism comes for us all, in the end. For this reason, Of Mice and Men is one of those truly life-changing books of the 20th Century.

Nonfiction Books About Life

Written by women and men from all over the world, these nonfiction books about life have the power to change your way of thinking, to inspire compassion and empathy and a different approach to life.

Some of these books inspire action, others inspire thought. Some are about how we live, others about why we live. Some are about the body, others about the mind. But they are all, in some way, nonfiction books about life.

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li

Nobody in the English language today writes like Yiyun Li. This fact is made all the more impressive when you consider that English is her second language, having moved from Beijing to New York City years ago.

With these writing skills, Yiyun Li has penned several excellent novels, but her most impressive work is the nonfiction Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life.

This book, which blends essay and memoir together, reflects on childhood, love, mental health, and death. It was begun after a pair of failed suicide attempts and took two years to complete.

Dear Friend is a meditation on life, death, reading, and writing, as perhaps best demonstrated by this quote from the book:

“Writing is an option, so is not writing; being read is a possibility, so is not being read. Reading, however, I equate with real life: life can be opened and closed like a book; living is a choice, so is not living.”

By being a book on death, Dear Friend also doubles as one of the best books about life you’re ever likely to read.

Read More: Essential Nonfiction Books About China

A Field Guide To Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit is a veteran nonfiction writer and essayist. A fierce and electrifying feminist, political activist, and social commentator. From a book on the history of walking to a manifesto against mansplaining, she’s done it all.

In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit blends meditations on life, art, and loss to create something truly profound. She begins the book with an essay that includes this pearl of wisdom:

“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go … Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?”

Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

Men who write big, bold books on human history are a dime a dozen these days, but I promise that Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s Humankind is something different; something worth your time.

Its title being a play on words, Humankind sets out to teach us that humanity — culturally, historically, politically, socially, genetically — is far kinder than we often give it credit for. The breadth of scope in Humankind almost beggars belief.

The book debunks psychological experiments built on lies by liars; it finds a real-life example of Lord of the Flies to demonstrate that the novel is cynical nonsense; it rewrites a more truthful and optimistic history of humanity.

For anyone whose faith in humanity often wavers, Bregman’s book is a balm. It is a light in the dark, and a soothing tonic. One of the best life-changing books you’ll ever read.

Constellations: Reflections From Life by Sinead Gleeson

Irish writer Sinead Gleeson is a beloved and respected woman in many ways, and for many good reasons. In Constellations, Gleeson turns the focus of her writing on her own life — and specifically her own body — as inspiration for discussion about life and love.

In a pure, almost figurative sense, this is one of the best books about life, as it is quite literally about a life: her body, her health, her mind and experiences.

It’s a book about the things that make a life: people, places, thoughts, experiences, the things we love and lose.

Constellations is a tough book, hard-hitting and raw. That’s what makes it one of the best life-changing books you can read.

goodbye, things by Fumio Sasaki

Translated from the Japanese by Eriko Sugita

Going from a life of excessive spending and self-abuse, Fumio Sasaki decided to part with all of his possessions, except for some very basic things needed for day to day living.

While Fumio Sasak’s approach is a little extreme in some areas, every single lesson he shares in goodbye, things is actionable such as his tips on taking pictures of things you’d like to remember.

We spend more money on buying or renting bigger homes, not to put extra people in but simply to fit in more stuff, which also costs more money.

There are real, practical life lessons in here, making it one of the most visceral life-changing books to read if you want to enact real change in your real life. Truly one of the best books on minimalism out there.

The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Kuile

Casper Ter Kuile is a British-born, US-based fellow of Harvard Divinity School, and his book explores the importance of religious ritual in a secular world.

The Power of Ritual begins by considering what church-related practices are lost in an increasingly secular world.

The two most prominent things are community-based practices, in which a group of likeminded people share time and support one another, and personal rituals like prayer.

The Power of Ritual invites secular readers to explore their own habits, hobbies, and personal behaviours, looking at how we can add a spiritual sense of ritual to the everyday, thus enhancing the importance of what we do.

He considers how our favourite novels can become sacred texts. How a community space like Crossfit can become church-like community spaces. It’s a simple concept with an immense amount of potential impact.

This is one of those books that change your life in more ways than one. It can change your attitude to ritual and religion, while also bringing meaning to your hobbies and habits in a way you never would’ve expected.

Read More: 12 Books like Atomic Habits

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak

A world traveller and award-winning author, Elif Shafak’s voice is one worth listening to, regardless of the topic, whether her writing takes the form of fiction or nonfiction.

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division is a lesson in optimism. It has the power to rekindle our hope and our faith when we all feel so exhausted by climate change, the rise of populism, and more.

It’s a book that can be read over a coffee, with the lyrical strength of poetry and the wisdom of a hundred lifetimes. It has a simple message but it presents that message through personal examples and grounded, cautious optimism.

A beautifully written book that may just help to alleviate some anxiety. And, in this world, that is worth everything. One of the great life-changing books of our time? Very likely, yes.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Translated from the German by Isle Lasch

Of all the nonfiction books that will change your life, Man’s Search for Meaning is perhaps one of the most obvious. You’re likely to find it alongside The Alchemist on many other lists. 

The difference is that The Alchemist is full of worthless, empty pseudo-wisdom, while Man’s Search for Meaning actually deserves to be on these lists of life-changing books.

Written in 1946, after the end of World War II, Man’s Search for Meaning is separated into two halves. The first half is a biography of Frankl’s time as a concentration camp prisoner.

This first half uses this space to examine how people find meaning in their suffering and devise a purpose for living. How do they cope? How do they make sense of their situation? How do they find meaning in their life?

In the book’s second half, Frankl lays out his own psychological invention: logotherapy, which was inspired by the events of the book’s first half. Logotherapy encourages people to find meaning in their suffering, in order to better cope with it.

Of all the overly-relied-upon life-changing books out there, Man’s Search for Meaning is a genuinely important one.

Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton

Here’s a book that will likely make a lot of people cringe, roll their eyes, or worse (depending on what kind of audience this list has drawn in. But it’s not my job to care. Terry Eagleton is a fantastic critic and philosopher, and Why Marx Was Right is an important book.

I haven’t just added this book to a list of books that will change your life for the hell of it. I’ve done it because this is a book about modern life; it is relevant to right now. It looks at the atrocities thrust on us by capitalist economies and fascist, right-wing leaders.

It then applies the economic and political philosophies of Karl Marx to everything, proving how an application of marxism could, and would, fix so much of our current political climate, in ways that even the staunchest socialist (myself included) would be surprised by.

If you’ve ever suffered at the hands of a conservative government or a capitalist economic system (which, if you’re alive today, you have), then this book is for you. It’s about life and how to make it better as a community, as voters, and as people.

Behave by Robert Sapolsky

Even though it’s irrelevant, I still think it’s important to know: Robert Sapolsky sounds exactly like Adam West, and that’s super neat.

Robert Sapolsky is also a very cool scientist. In Behave, Sapoksly looks at the habits, rhymes, and reasons of human behaviour from a neurobiological angle.

In Behave, Sapolsky asks the question: why do we behave with aggression or compassion at any given time? He then plies his own expertise and research in order to answer that enormous and daunting question.

The results of this are fascinating. Behave is an enormous and dense book, but one that is worth every second of your time. This is a book about life in the truest, purest sense. It’s about life from the inside out.

You’ll find all three kinds of books on this list. Some of these winter books are simply books set in the snow and the cold; set during Christmas or the January chill. Others are books that feel like a hug, like a companion sitting beside you while you warm yourself at the fireside.

And then there are the books that feel like winter. Gothic, isolating, lonely, and creepy books. And, of course, plenty of mystery stories.

Must-Read Winter Books

So, from warm and cosy reads to the bleakest horror, these are the winter books that fit every kind of vibe that the coldest season conjures. If you’ve come here looking for books to keep you happy during the darker nights, you’ll find them here. And you’ll also find books that dare to feel like the bleakest parts of winter.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol is the most obvious story to appear on a list of winter books, and for good reason! This is a great little classic to read when winter begins. It gets you in the mood for Christmas like nothing else can. It is also nice and short, so it can be enjoyed in one sitting on Christmas Eve (a tradition for many of us).

What’s also wonderful about Dickens’ classic novella is that it isn’t overtly Christian, even though he was. This is a ghost story and a tale of kindness and community. It’s Christian in spirit, but far from biblical. The focus is on family and on human connection; of putting people before our own greed. Wholesome Christian messages.

And, of course, there is something particularly wintry about a Victorian setting. The cobbled streets of Victorian London look particularly romantic in the snow. A Christmas Carol remains a must-read Christmas classic to read when the nights have drawn in and the lights get hung. One of the quintessential winter books.

Buy a copy of A Christmas Carol here!

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is perhaps the one author who is essential reading during the winter months. There is a long tradition of murder mysteries being entwined with the cold and the snow. So many murder mystery stories are set during the winter, and there is something so wonderfully cosy about reading one by the fireside as the snow falls outside.

For this reason, any Agatha Christie novel would do! But why not lean into the winter theme as hard as possible and read the Midwinter Murder collection. Every one of these is a story set at Christmas, and you’ll find an impressive number of them here, including The Clergyman’s Daughter, A Christmas Tragedy, and The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge.

For sheer quality and quantity alike, you can’t do much better than this collection of winter stories. Agatha Christie always, always guarantees to reel in every reader with a unique setup, only to then floor them each time with a twisted plot and an exciting reveal. There’s something satisfying and irresistible about a murder, a mystery, or a murder mystery set in the chill of winter.

Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of joy and tragedy, or the perfect pairing of dark and cold with death and blood. Whatever it is, Christie understood it, and Midwinter Murder is a must-read winter book for any bookworm, especially during the festive period.

Buy a copy of Midwinter Murder here!

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Little Women is another one of those essential winter books. Winter (and especially Christmas) is a time of family and connection. Little Women epitomises this. Not only that, but this is a novel predominantly set during the winter period. It beautifully romanticises a snowy, rural New England winter.

Little Women is also a novel aimed at younger readers, meaning it is playful, simple, sweet, but certainly not without its tragedies and difficult moments. This is the perfect winter novel to read with your own children, or to reawaken the cosy inner child of your own.

There are also several fantastic film adaptations of Little Women that make for great viewing on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. A coming-of-age story set mostly in the winter, which focuses on the growth of, and bonds between, a family of sisters. One of the most perfect winter books.

Buy a copy of Little Women here!

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Many of us grew up on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and the first novel Northern Lights makes for one of the best winter books for children. And for adults, of course — especially if you grew up on these fantastical stories, as I did. Or if you really want to get the most appreciation out of Pullman’s antireligious themes.

Though we begin in an alternate Oxford, Northern Lights (as its title suggests) soon takes us far to the north, to a snowy land of witches and armoured bears. This arctic setting, which takes up much of the book, makes for a wonderful winter read. And the fact that it’s a children’s story means that there is adventure aplenty.

Given how bleak and dark January can feel, when Christmas is over and the days are dark, this is a great novel to read after Christmas. It will keep your spirits high and instil in the reader a sense of grand adventure, hope, and excitement during the darkest month of the year. A perfect winter read for children and adults alike.

Buy a copy of Northern Lights here!

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

The twentieth Discworld novel is another perfect winter read, especially in the lead-up to Christmas. We follow Death as he attempts to fill in for the Discworld’s version of Father Christmas: the titular Hogfather. The Discworld books are wonderful for so many reasons: clever worldbuilding, political satire, allegorical stories, fun twists on fantasy tropes, and even more besides.

For this reason, they all make for lovely reading during the cold winter months. However, this particular Discworld novel is Christmas-themed. What could be better!

Buy a copy of Hogfather here!

The Shining by Stephen King

Winter is a time for horror. Aside from Halloween, there really isn’t a better time to enjoy some chilling horror novels. So, let’s turn first to the master of American horror: Stephen King, and his iconic novel The Shining.

Telling the story of an alcoholic, Jack Torrence, who takes a job as caretaker of an empty hotel while it’s closed during the winter period, this is a tale of isolation and mental instability. The winter setting, the large and looming hotel setting, the isolation of the place, and Jack’s fragile mental state all add up to the perfect horror novel to read in the darkest depths of winter.

Buy a copy of The Shining here!

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai

Seishi Yokomizo was the Agatha Christie of Japan. A honkaku mystery writer of genius setups, perfect payoffs, and campy characters. His debut murder mystery, The Honjin Murders, is even set in an isolated cabin, out in the Japanese wilderness, surrounded by several feet of snow.

Murder mystery novels, as already mentioned, are the perfect genre to be read in the winter, but this one really takes the cake with its snowy setting. And of course, it’s not just the snow but the crisp air, the empty space, the isolation, and the fact that the cast of characters are a family and the death comes during a wedding ceremony.

The Honjin Murders also marked the debut of Yokomizo’s answer to Poirot: Detective Kindaichi. Young, arrogant, and flamboyant, Kindaichi is the ideal campy character to add some colour to those dark winter evenings. Murder mysteries are cosy; they’re wonderful winter books. And beyond Christie’s library, it’s Yokomizo’s books you should be turning to.

Buy a copy of The Honjin Murders here!

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein is this writer’s favourite novel, and there isn’t a better time to read Shelley’s masterpiece than in the darkest depths of winter. The most obvious reason is that Frankenstein begins and ends in a cold, isolated, icy setting. A ship trapped in the arctic ice and a creature on the hunt beyond the mist.

This setting invokes the feeling of winter not only for its coldness, but also for its sense of isolation, emptiness, and vulnerability. Beyond that particular setting, Frankenstein is also a gothic tale about a selfish and neglectful man and the intelligent creature he builds and abandons.

Frankenstein is a revenge tragedy, and that kind of heavy, weighted gothic storytelling makes it one of the best winter books to be enjoyed when the world is quiet. Winter is still and lonely, and the rage of Frankenstein’s creature lights all of that up. And his isolation also so beautifully mirrors the tone and feeling of winter itself. For my money, Frankenstein is another of those essential winter books to enjoy as the snow falls.

Buy a copy of Frankenstein here!

The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita

Translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel

The Forest of Wool and Steel is a great winter read for two reasons. One: it’s a Japanese novel set in Hokkaido, a snowy and rural paradise. Two: it is a coming-of-age tale about friendship and art and music and self-discovery.

The Hokkaido setting really makes this a wonderful winter read. Aside from the neon-lit city of Sapporo, Hokkaido is a wide open wilderness of small towns, forests, and lakes. And during the winter, this large northern island is buried under so much snow. There’s no better setting for a winter novel!

But the story of a young piano tuner refining his craft, making friends, learning from his mentor, and building a group of friends and colleagues as he grows is also a heartwarming one. This is a short, sweet, and simple novel. It isn’t taxing or dark. It lifts your spirits and holds them high during a difficult and often lonely time of year.

Buy a copy of The Forest of Wool and Steel here!

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

While it isn’t particularly wintry in its setting, Tolkien’s The Hobbit has become a mainstay amongst winter books; one that is enjoyed by children of all ages, especially around Christmas time. The Hobbit is an imaginative adventure; a novel that did so much for the fantasy genre and for children’s literature.

Commonly enjoyed during the Christmas period, The Hobbit is a colourful adventure that matches the pomp and splendour of Christmas. If you enjoy it after Christmas has passed, however, The Hobbit has the power to light up those dark and drab January nights with its playful language and curious cast of colourful characters.

As adults, this is a novel that reignites our childish imaginations. As children, it’s one that takes us on bold and wild new adventures. A must-read amongst winter books.

Buy a copy of The Hobbit here!

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

Given the ways in which nature itself turns against us during the winter (the biting cold, the vulnerability we feel, the long nights and short days), there aren’t many horror novels set during winter. One of the few that is also happens to be a stand-out book amongst modern British horror novels: The Shape of Darkness.

Laura Purcell has been the queen of UK horror for some time now, beginning with her breakout haunted house novel The Silent Companions. Her fourth novel, The Shape of Darkness is a blend of terror and mystery set in the English city of Bath during a Victorian winter.

Bath is a beautiful city any time of year, but its beauty really stands out during the autumn and winter months. That beauty is soaked with blood in The Shape of Darkness, however, as the deaths start to pile up.

The Shape of Darkness is a horror mystery about paranoia and secrecy. It takes familiar tropes of both the horror and mystery genres and twists them into strange new shapes. A gorgeous historic city; a snowy winter setting; a blend of horror and murder-mystery. You can’t ask for more out of your winter books.

Buy a copy of The Shape of Darkness here!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Gothic novels deserve to be enjoyed in the autumn and winter seasons. These are the times when they come to life. Given how Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights features on our autumn books list, it only feels right that her sister’s Jane Eyre be enjoyed in the winter months.

This gothic romance is a fantastic choice; a classic amongst winter books, as we follow the titular Jane make a home for herself in a big, echoing country estate. This is a novel of cursed people, of poisoned love, of secrets and treachery and deceit. It’s loud and quiet all at once.

Jane Eyre is a lesson in gothic romance, with hateful people falling in love and finding their own kind of peace, while the lonely rural setting keeps them trapped together. Few novels feel better when read during the winter months, making Jane Eyre another one of the essential winter books.

Buy a copy of Jane Eyre here!

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

Fantasy novels are epic things, and that epicness can be a wonderful companion during the lonely winter months. Heading off on a grand adventure, facing down mighty foes, and making friends and companions along the way — these things are all a great comfort during winter.

But all of this can be made even better by an appropriately wintry setting, like that of The Shadow of the Gods. This is a Norse-inspired fantasy epic that takes place in a wild and snow-covered world in which humans have made their homes amongst the corpses of gods.

Those gods engaged in a great war centuries ago, and now they are gone. The humans that we follow are hunters and mercenaries. We follow their quests, bond with them along the way, and enjoy the snowy landscape as we go. Amongst winter books, this is one of the best fantasy books you could enjoy.

Buy a copy of The Shadow of the Gods here!

All The White Spaces by Ally Wilkes

Like Frankenstein, The Shining, and The Terror before it, Ally Wilkes’ All The White Spaces is a fantastic horror adventure to take during the winter period. This novel tells the story of a young trans lad who stows away on an exploration vessel bound for the south pole. He always dreamed of seeing it and now, with his brothers having died in the trenches of the Great War, he has no reason not to make his dream a reality.

But there is something travelling with him. Jonathan is seeing visions, and when they arrive in Antarctica, so will the rest of the crew. This is a dark and desolate world that reminds us of the isolation and discomfort that the cold and the winter period can bring.

All The White Spaces acts as a metaphor for the winter. A period of excitement leading to a drawn-out time comprised of short days, long nights, discomfiting cold, isolation, and misery. A wonderful companion novel for the winter period that empathises with the struggles of the season.

Buy a copy of All The White Spaces here!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel was an astonishing breakout hit, and remains a favourite for so many readers who love fantasy and fairytales. This is a novel spilling over with magic and mystery. Stunningly written, theatrical, Shakespearean, and bursting with imagination.

A Victorian world is always a good one to get lost in during the winter period, but one that is mostly set at night and is full of strange magic and devilish deals really is peak as winter books go.

Buy a copy of The Night Circus here!

The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

Joanne Harris is a legend of British literature, and The Gospel of Loki represented a very exciting shift in her canon: a rip-roaring fantasy adventure inspired by Norse mythology. What Harris does here, in a genius way, is take all of the legendary tales of Loki, and thread them together into one single narrative to make for a wonderfully fun novel.

This is a fun and funny novel that is at once respectful of its legacy and also doing something entirely fresh and exciting. What makes it such a perfect winter read is the fact that it is Norse (therefore cold and snow) but also that it’s a wild and thrilling adventure that follows the most exciting of all the gods. It’s hard to have a more fun time during the winter period than reading The Gospel of Loki.

Buy a copy of The Gospel of Loki here!

Uplifting Asian voices is vital now, and what better way to do so than by consuming what they create? We have put together a list of audiobooks by Asian authors that you can enjoy, learn from, or maybe even relate to.

1) When Dimple Met Rishi

Many are familiar with the rom-com genre, but author Sandhya Menon puts her spin on it by incorporating the Indian tradition of arranged marriage in When Dimple Met Rishi. This is a big problem for protagonist Dimple, who would rather develop her tech skills than get married. On the other hand, Rishi is a hopeless romantic, excited at the prospect of meeting his future wife.

When they meet at a summer program for aspiring web developers, they don’t exactly get along, but they still find they’re drawn to each other. Readers who love a funny, light-hearted romance will enjoy this book, and women in STEM will appreciate the representation too!

Listen to the audiobook.

2) This Time Will Be Different

Asian coming-of-age novels are coming to the forefront of the market as more stories of the immigrant experience are being sought out by audiences across generations. Misa Sugiura’s This Time Will Be Different follows 17-year-old CJ Katsuyama as she navigates her youth in the midst of a turbulent family drama. She finds solace in her aunt Hannah’s flower shop until it is decided that the shop will be sold to the family who cheated them out of their property during World War II.

The book masterfully tackles racism and feminism, breaking down the model minority myth often imposed on Asian immigrants. It could be relatable for many young Asians in situations like CJ’s and educational for those unfamiliar with the history it touches on.

Listen to the audiobook.

3) On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Navigating the immigrant experience is never easy, especially when coming from war. Poet Ocean Vuong’s first novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is written in the form of a letter by the narrator — known only as Little Dog — addressed to his mother who can’t read and will not know the true meaning. It’s a hauntingly beautiful and tragic exploration of the trauma of war, Southeast Asian diaspora, and queerness through the relationship between mother and son.

It also dives into the struggle of trying to understand a parent as a first-generation immigrant, both coming from different lives. Queer readers may see themselves in Little Dog’s story, a close-to-home depiction of trying to find acceptance in society and family.

Listen to the audiobook.

4) Crying in H Mart

When trying to connect to different cultures you grew up in, finding a sense of belonging can be challenging. Crying in H Mart touches on the complexity of grief and culture through the singer and author Michelle Zauner’s relationship with her mother Chongmi, who passed away from cancer. Through short stories and anecdotes from her life, Zauner unravels her experiences navigating her place as a half-Asian, half-white woman, and trying to find her place in these identities.

After drifting away from her “Koreaness,” she decides to learn how to make Korean food to keep the culture and memory of Chongmi alive in her. It’s a heart-wrenching yet hopeful listen that reminds readers experiencing loss that death is not the end of all things. Instead, it can be the start of new ones.

Listen to the audiobook.

5) Hunter School

Despite what you think you may know about a country, there’s much history and culture that isn’t often given a spotlight. Sakinu Ahronglong’s Hunter School intermingles folklore, history, and tradition woven into autobiographical accounts as an aboriginal Taiwanese person.

Through the past, elders, and ancestors, he learns more about his heritage and the value of community and traditions built on kindness and peace. It’s an eye-opening book for anyone looking to learn more about indigenous cultures or to see society in a new light.

Listen to the audiobook.

Read our other audiobook guides:

12 Best Sci-Fi Audiobooks

11 Best Fantasy Audiobooks

The distance between fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and fairy tales has been reduced, and it’s all for the better. Modern fantasy books are wholly unique and exciting stories for this reason.

Exciting Modern Fantasy Books

The books you’ll find here each do something unique that sets them apart from the tropes and traditions of fantasy fiction.

We are living through a bold new time in fantasy, and the authors of these modern fantasy books are leading the charge.

Read More: The Best Fantasy Books of All Time

The Broken Earth Series by N.K. Jemisin

This staggering trilogy of modern fantasy books by American author N.K. Jemisin represents a turning point in fantasy fiction.

These novels, narratively and conceptually, are unlike anything that exists in the realms of fantasy and science fiction literature. Their breadth and scope is exceptional.

For proof of the impact these books had upon their release, every single book in the trilogy took home the Hugo Award for Best Novel in its respective year, making it the only trilogy to ever accomplish this.

The first novel in this trilogy of modern fantasy books, The Fifth Season, follows three separate protagonists, all living in slightly different times on a massive continent called the Stillness.

Essun is a middle-aged mother who sets out on a journey of revenge after she comes home to find that her husband has killed their son and taken their daughter away.

Essun herself is secretly able to manipulate the earth itself; this is a skill that a small percentage of people — known as orogenes — possess.

The second protagonist is Damaya, a young orogene whose parents have organised to be removed from their home and put into the hands of an organisation — known as the Fulcrum — that can train and weaponise her.

And the third protagonist, Syenite, is a member of the Fulcrum who has been sent out on a mission with the world’s most powerful orogene.

The worldbuilding and character writing of this phenomenal trilogy is what sets it so far apart from all other modern fantasy books.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, nothing else in the world of fantasy has managed to marry intimate character moulding with political and social allegories and ingenious worldbuilding quite like the Broken Earth trilogy.

Buy a copy of the Broken Earth series here!

Mordew by Alex Pheby

Mordew is one of the most raw, gnarly, and punk modern fantasy books you’ll ever read. This is a lovecraftian blend of cosmic horror and grimy political angst.

Set in the titular Mordew, a coastal city battered by the waves, this is a small world watched over by a man called the Master.

Our protagonist, Nathan, is a slum boy who trawls through the “living mud” looking for things to sell, all the while his father lies bedridden at home.

Meanwhile, the Master’s castle home sits atop the corpse of God itself, feeding off its body like a parasite.

The setting and concept of Mordew is bold and discomfiting, making the reader squirm with its rancid streets and corrupt, bloated characters.

But there are also mysteries to solve and secrets to uncover, and Nathan gradually builds a little party of friends, with whom he will find answers and grow to understand the world in which he lives.

Alex Pheby has built something larger than life here, with an understanding that “fantasy” means doing whatever your imagination allows, while still adhering to one’s own set of rules.

He is a writer of both scope and intimacy, and that is vital to the success of modern fantasy books. Mordew is truly unique.

Buy a copy of Mordew here!

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Aside from their publication date, how do we actually define what modern fantasy books are? The Priory of the Orange Tree is a great example to use here.

This is an epic fantasy novel; a sweeping saga that spans an entire world. It pays homage to the genre’s legacy, most obviously by putting the spotlight on dragons.

It has an in-built mythology around dragons; it makes them larger-than-life, and something to be feared.

But The Priory of the Orange Tree is also a fantasy novel written by a woman, with a focus on female and queer protagonists.

Historically, the fantasy genre has been dominated by straight, white men. This novel, along with the Broken Earth series, is part of a reclamation of fantasy.

Aside from all of this, it is also simply a perfectly-crafted, perfectly-paced fantasy epic.

This is a world of queens, of magic, of assassins and outcasts and mages and pirates and dragons. A world with details internal lore and mythology.

The world of this novel lives and breathes; it is entirely three-dimensional. Crafting like this is rarely pulled off on such a massive scale.

For this reason, Samantha Shannon really is one-of-a-kind amongst authors of modern fantasy books.

Buy a copy here!

The Bone Ships by R.J. Baker

The Bone Ships is the first book of R.J. Barker’s Tide Child trilogy (named for the ship piloted by our protagonists). This is a brilliantly original modern fantasy novel set on the high seas.

The world of The Bone Ships is a world at war. Two nations — two archipelagos — have been at war for so long, it has become tradition. But it’s also a war of attrition.

The titular bone ships are warships built from the bones of sea dragons, due to a lack of resources on the world’s islands. This means every ship that is lost cannot be replaced. And no new dragon has been seen for generations.

Until now, that is. Rumours of a new dragon mean a potential turning point in this senseless war.

Our protagonist is Joron, a man condemned to captain a black ship (these are ships crewed by convicts, fated to die in war).

When the novel begins, Joron loses a duel to a legendary warrior, Mean Gilbryn, disgraced daughter of their nation’s leader, and so he must cede the Tide Child to her, and thus she becomes the shipwife (captain).

This is a modern fantasy novel with many refreshing elements, including a matriarchal society with expansive, captivating legends, lore, and traditions.

A wonderfully well-realised world of seafaring adventure, war, and dragons. A fantasy fan couldn’t ask for much more. This is one of the best modern fantasy books of recent years.

Buy a copy of The Bone Ships here!

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

American author Travis Baldree has worked for many years as a professional audiobook narrator. But while he often narrates epic fantasy novels, his own tastes align with more cosy, low-stakes literature.

This led Baldree to write his own debut fantasy novel: a low-stakes cosy novel set in a high fantasy world.

Our protagonist, Viv, is a retired barbarian mercenary who has decided to hang up her blood-soaked sword and open up a little coffee shop.

Reminiscent of some of the best isekai manga and anime, Legends & Lattes flips the tired script on what readers expect from a fantasy setting and story, swapping out brewing wars for brewing drinks.

Legends & Lattes is a heartwarming novel about found family. Viv enlists the help of a himbo builder, a charming succubus, and an adorable rattkin to build her perfect little world.

Leaning into fantasy tropes that will be familiar to anyone who has played DnD or Skyrim, Baldree has crafted a sweet and wholesome story set in a world of orcs and elves.

But it’s the aforementioned found family that really sells this novel as a glowing success amongst modern fantasy novels. You’ll laugh with them and cry for them all. And you’ll do anything to protect Thimble.

Buy a copy of Legends and Lattes here!

Read More: 16 Must-Read Cozy Fantasy & Found Family Books

Gideon the Ninth by Tasyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth is another shining example of what sets modern fantasy books apart from their predecessors, but in a very different way.

This is a novel that masterfully mixes so many different genres.

We have a fantasy narrative within a gothic and horror-tinged science fiction world, and characters who talk and behave like YA protagonists.

And it all works! The fact that this absurd blend of genres, tropes, and themes is executed so flawlessly is miraculous. And the novel is a thrillride from beginning to end.

Set in a strange system of planets that are all a singular necromantic empire, we follow an edgy, angsty teenager who must play sword and protector to her planet’s princess, Harrowhark.

Nine planets, each with its own school of necromancy, and the nine heirs have been invited to the emperor’s planet to take part in a trial.

This trial will determine whether or not the heirs will rise to the role of lyctor (a necromantic saint blessed with immortality).

This is a world of death, of living skeletons, of catacombs and tombs. It’s bleak, but Muir’s dialogue is sharp and witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

The YA vibrancy of the characters mixes harshly with the bleak and morbid aesthetic of this world, and yet that clash is part of what makes the novel so unique.

That and the way in which, like Dune before it, Gideon the Ninth blends fantasy, science fiction, and horror aesthetics together.

We live in a time where the lines between genres have blurred, and as readers, we’re all the richer for it.

Modern fantasy books like Gideon the Ninth are an absolute wonder.

Buy a copy of Gideon the Ninth here!

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

Inspired by the presence and power of gods in world mythologies, Hannah Kaner’s debut fantasy novel Godkiller takes a fresh approach to the epic fantasy genre of literature.

The prologue opens with a truly harrowing scene, as our protagonist Kissen and her family — descendents of a water god — are taken by a cult of zealots to be ritualistically sacrificed to a fire god.

From here we jump forward to an adult Kissen making a living out of assassinating gods for money, a job which this bitter woman finds great satisfaction in.

However, early in this fantasy book, Kissen meets out second and third protagonists: a young noble’s daughter and a tiny god which has bonded with her like a daemon from His Dark Materials.

The two beg Kissen for help, and she begrudgingly agrees to do so. From here, they set out on a journey across a land which we come to know and become fascinated by as the story goes on.

One refreshing aspect of Godkiller is its length; while this is the first in a new series, and it certainly fits the bill of “epic”, it is not an overly long and bloated fantasy novel.

This is a tightly-crafted, well-paced fantasy adventure for fans of the genre, and of mythology.

Buy a copy of Godkiller here!

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

Ottessa Moshfegh is an American author known for writing unlikeable women protagonists, for being punk and harsh and uncaring with her narratives and characters.

This is what makes her such a treasured voice amongst modern authors, and what makes her My Year of Rest and Relaxation such a modern classic.

Lapvona is Moshfegh dipping her toes into the world of fantasy, historical fiction, and folklore all at once.

Set in a nondescript mediaeval world of natural disasters, serfs tilling the soil, and a spoiled master lording himself over the poor beneath him, Lapvona is raw and gnarly.

In this world we have hunger and death; we have a blind wise woman who has nursed every child in the village; and we have sharp political and economic allegories to dig into.

Marek, son of an abusive single father, has a uniquely close bond with the wise woman, but he also gets tied up with the governor’s son, and that tangle will unravel their community.

Lapvona is a novel about power, about suffering, about unfair social imbalances, and so much more. It is scathing and disgusting and exciting.

Another great example of genres being blended: this is somewhat historical, beautifully fantastical, and cleverly literary. There’s nothing quite like it.

Buy a copy of Lapvona here!

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint

Fantasy as a genre was born out of mythology. It is a genre that invites writers to create their own worlds, and within them, their own mythologies, traditions, lore, gods, and heroes.

And for many years now, we have seen incredible modern writers reimagine and retell classic works of Greek and Norse mythology.

One of the best of these authors is Jennifer Saint, and her novel Atalanta is a true sweeping epic adventure tale for fans of the best modern fantasy books.

Atalanta tells the story of the titular heroine, abandoned on a hillside by her royal father, nurtured by a bear, and then saved and raised by Artemis herself — goddess of the hunt.

But this is only the beginning of Atalanta’s life. When she reaches adulthood, she is warned never to marry, and is then sent to join Jason and his band of Argonauts on the greatest adventure the ancient Greeks had ever seen.

A legendary runner and archer, Atalanta proves herself an invaluable Argonaut, and along her adventure we come to know and enjoy the company of heroes and icons like Heracles and Orpheus.

Atalanta is a true adventure story. Monsters are hunted, temptations overcome, beasts slain, kings conquered, and eventually the legendary Golden Fleece must be obtained.

This ancient tale, told from the perspective of a naive but admirable outcast — a survivor and a future heroine — is captivating from page one. A fantastical epic and an astonishing work of mythological retelling.

Buy a copy of Atalanta here!

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

Here is an outlandish and absurd fantasy novel that some will love and others will hate.

To be completely frank, I loved some aspects of this novel while hating most others. But (and this is important), I loved to hate those parts. In that way, there was nothing I didn’t love.

Empire of the Vampire is an oversized pseudo-gothic vampire epic; an enormous horror fantasy novel; an absurd male power fantasy.

Everything about this novel is ridiculous, overblown, silly, campy, and cringe. And I personally loved it for all of those stupid reasons.

Set in a world in which people randomly sometimes say French words, we listen as a legendary vampire hunter sits in a tower and relays his life story to his captor.

Gabriel de Leon was a child when the sun failed to rise. Now, the vampires that had always hidden themselves away have risen up to build an empire and lay waste to human society.

Gabe, however, turns out to be a half-vampire, and is recruited into an order of half-vampire hunters, and we read on as he rises up to become a legend.

Gabe is crass and rude and edgy; an awkward and uncomfortable male power fantasy, but that’s what makes him so much fun to read.

You’ll laugh along at how “cool” Gabe is, while also genuinely enjoying the worldbuilding and pacing of this well-plotted, well-conceived vampire fantasy novel.

There is so much wrong with this book, but it has earned a place on this list for its boldness, its uniqueness, and for being a horror-tinged fantasy epic.

Amongst modern fantasy books, there is nothing quite like Empire of the Vampire, and that is both a good and a bad thing.

Buy a copy here!

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

This is proper, hardcore epic fantasy; a viking-inspired modern fantasy novel that leans into all the tropes and trappings that fantasy fans know and love.

There is very little here that’s particularly fresh — The Shadow of the Gods isn’t reinventing the fantasy wheel. Instead, it is simply a honed and sharp piece of exciting fantasy fiction.

This fantasy novel is an expression of the author’s love for Scandinavian folklore, mythology, and landscapes. It feels like a Norse epic, though it is in fact entirely original.

For fans who have been raised by fantasy fiction, The Shadow of the Gods is nostalgic; it is comforting and understanding; it is childhood brought back to life.

As its title suggests, this novel begins three hundred years after a war was waged between the gods, and this war wiped them all out.

Now, their enormous animalistic corpses litter the landscape, and our human protagonists live amongst them, literally in the shadow of the gods.

In fact, one human city has been built into the skull of the father of all gods. This is truly epic scene-setting.

We have three protagonists, two of whom are women. One is a hunter who is teaching her son how to survive.

The second is a runaway slave who joins a mercenary group as he searches for a witch. The third is a member of a viking crew who are hunting down a wanted criminal.

If you love Norse mythology and cold viking worlds, you’re going to adore this.

Shadow of the Gods is one of the coolest (pardon the pun) modern fantasy books.

Buy a copy of The Shadow of the Gods here!

A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos

Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle

Set on a floating island (arc) named Anima, A Winter’s Promise (the first in the Mirror Visitor series) is a French YA fantasy novel which follows the journey of a young woman named Ophelia.

Ophelia, like everyone on Anima, has a power related to objects in the world. Her power allows her to “read” the history of an object, and so she curates a museum owned by her grandfather.

However, Ophelia’s hand has been promised to Thorn, a superintendent and a bastard from another arc; Thorn and his Dragon clan have powers far more physical and dangerous than those of the people on Anima.

Thorn and Ophelia are bound by the want of a man who seeks to understand a powerful book, for which he requires Ophelia’s power.

Amongst modern French books, A Winter’s Promise stands out as an exciting work of YA fantasy fiction with wonderful world-building, clever politics and plotting, and deep lore.

The politics of Versailles meets Pride and Prejudice in an enemies-to-lovers tale. Layered storytelling and an aesthetic reminiscent of Studio Ghibli, A Winter’s Promise is a delicious French novel.

Buy a copy here!

The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi

Translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano

Inspired by the folklore of native Australia, Japanese author Nahoko Uehashi has carved out a vivid and engrossing world of beasts and magic.

The Beast Player is a 500 page YA fantasy epic from Japanese author Nahoko Uehashi.

It tells the story of Elin, a young girl who grew up in a village full of caretakers who train and look after a herd of dangerous beasts known as Toda.

Elin’s mother, originally from a distant and mysterious tribe, is sentenced to death after the most elite beasts in the village all suddenly die at once under her care.

After escaping the village, Elin is raised by a wandering beekeeper and subsequently grows into adulthood at a sanctuary for another kind of dangerous creature: Royal Beasts.

The book follows the fantasy tradition of dropping the reader into an impressively detailed world and having its history, geography, lore, politics, traditions, and culture all slowly unfold as the protagonist grows and travels.

Its sequel, The Beast Warrior, is set roughly ten years after The Beast Player’s conclusion, with Elin now around thirty years old, married to a supporting character from the first book, and mother to an eight-year-old boy named Jesse.

Together, these are two of the most exciting YA fantasy books to come out of Japan, or anywhere in the world for that matter.

Buy a copy of The Beast Player here!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

American author V.E. Schwab has made a big name for herself as an author of urban fantasy and magical realism.

She expertly weaves tropes and concepts together; things like superpowers, folklore, and gothic themes. Her writing is evocative of the works of Neil Gaiman while also being wholly original.

And The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is perhaps her grandest novel.

Our protagonist, Addie, was born in a small rural village in 17th century France. In order to escape forced (or “expected”) matrimony, she seeks out an old pagan god to make a deal with.

The deal she makes is that she is now free and immortal, but she cannot be remembered. She cannot speak her name; she doesn’t show up in photographs.

When people meet her, they then immediately forget her when their back is turned. She is entirely alone and unshackled by anything at all.

However, now living in present-day New York City, Addie suddenly meets a man who manages a bookshop and, for some reason, he doesn’t forget her.

To say any more would be to spoil things, but The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a magical urban fantasy novel and one of the best modern fantasy books, hands down.

Buy a copy here!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus is a very special debut novel, one that instantly shot its author into the stratosphere, writing her name in the stars alongside other urban fantasy greats.

This is a novel of magic in every sense of the world; a novel bursting at the seams with wonder, possibility, imagination, poetry, and beauty.

Gorgeously written, full of mystery and intrigue. This is a fantasy novel, a fairy tale, a piece of historical fiction. It does so much so well.

The titular Night Circus is a magical circus (Le Cirque des Rêves) that appears at dusk and disappears by dawn.

Its enigmatic owner, Prospero, has begun a game with his old friend and cohort, in which they must each raise an apprentice.

Eventually, the two will be pitted against one another in a magical duel. And it is these two apprentices, Celia and Marco, that we follow through the course of this novel.

The Victorian world, circus setting, and magical characters make this one of the most exciting and original modern fantasy books of all time.

Buy a copy of The Night Circus here!

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

While this epic fantasy novel is slightly older than the other modern fantasy books on this list, it is still a product of the 21st Century.

The Name of the Wind is also one of the most lauded and beloved fantasy novels of all time, so it’s pretty likely that most people reading this have read it, and its sequel.

That said, if it wasn’t featured here, some people would probably be annoyed, so here it is!

Upon its release, The Name of the Wind did a lot to buck the trends and claw out of the pit of tropes that the fantasy genre had fallen into.

We begin with a fantastic framing device (which Empire of the Vampire emulated in a far less successful way) and some truly evocative and poetic language to boot.

Our protagonist, Kvothe, has hidden himself away, living as an innkeeper on a quiet road. However, his identity is uncovered and a scribe has asked to pen Kvothe’s story.

And so we are thrown back to Kvothe’s childhood as a member of a travelling troupe of performers, before a tragedy turns him out onto the street.

Eventually, Kvothe enrols in a university in order to learn the magic system of this world, and this is where the majority of this novel is set (inspired by the author’s own lengthy time at university).

The Name of the Wind very much did its own thing, ignoring the rules of worldbuilding and narrative that had been established by repetition within the genre.

For this reason, it remains one of the greatest modern fantasy books of all time.

Buy a copy here!

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht

This grimdark novella is a beautiful blend of fantasy and gothic horror, reminiscent of Alex Pheby’s Mordew (above).

This is the debut book by Canadian author Jennifer Giesbrecht, and it is set in a lonely and bleak world industrial world reminiscent of Scandinavia, peppered with language that sounds vaguely German or Dutch.

Our protagonist, the titular monster of the dying city of Elendhaven, has no name at first, but soon comes to take on the name Johann. He doesn’t know where he came from, and he has had to kill and steal to survive.

Johann also can’t die, no matter how hard he tries.

Having taken an interest in the last member of the city’s once-great founding family, Florian Leickenbloom, Johann stalks him to learn what he can, and is eventually recruited as Florian’s personal monster.

Despite his family money having dried up, and him working as a seemingly innocent accountant in a forgotten city, Florian is working to deter investors from the South, and also appears to have a little magic of his own.

Soaked in blood, sparkling with strange magic, and steeped in mystery, The Monster of Elendhaven is a grimdark fantasy set in a bleak and hopeless place of oppression and misery.

If a blend of gothic horror and grimdark fantasy sounds like your cup of tea, you’ll find The Monster of Elendhaven to be one of the best modern fantasy books out there right now.

Buy a copy here!