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my reading for the best of the best from the past year. titles on My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads to find out about my overall favorite reads from last year What are some of your favorite fantasy reads, whether from the past year or beyond? One year later, they find themselves sitting in a fluorescent-lit classroom in their seaside town with I received a prepublication edition of this book (which was published the year prior, oops!)

as I mine my reading for the Bossy best of the best from the past year. You can find my first list of favorites from the past year here . titles on My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads to find out about my overall favorite reads from last year What are some of your favorite fantasy reads, whether from the past year or beyond? Loved in the Past Year .

Six Great Bossy Fantasy Reads I read some entertaining, imaginative, sometimes funny, fantastic fantasy in the past year--enough to make up multiple Greedy Reading List roundups. You can find other lists of favorite fantasy reads from past years here . What are some of your favorite fantasy reads? Sarah Rees Brennan is also the author of the fantastic character-driven young-adult fantasy In Other

fantasy in the past year--enough to make up multiple Greedy Reading List roundups. You can find my first list recapping last year's favorites here . You can find other lists of favorite fantasy reads from past years here . A fifteen-year-old Indigenous Masquisit girl Anequs finds a dragon egg, and when it hatches, she befriends For twenty years, Sciona has single-mindedly set out to learn enough complex, intuitive, precise, powerful

You can find last year's version of this list here: Six Favorite Bossy Fantasy Reads from the Past Year You can find my recent-ish two lists of favorite science fiction and fantasy reads from the past year here: Six Four Star (And Up) Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads I Loved in the Past Year Six More Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads I've Loved in the Past Year And you can click here for other science fiction June has been seeing and hearing visions for a year now, and she believes they're linked to the curse

: Six of My Favorite Fiction Reads Last Year Six More of My Favorite Fiction Reads from the Past Year Six Four-Star Mystery Reads I Loved Last Year Six More Four-Star Mysteries I Loved Last Year Six Four-Star Year, and Six of My Favorite Memoir Reads Last Year And check out My Very Favorite Bossy 2022 Reads for my absolute most favorite reads from last year. What are some of your favorite fantasy reads, from the past year or from this one so far?

Six More Great Bossy Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads The Obsessive Wrap-Up of Favorite Reads continues You can click here for other science fiction and fantasy books that I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. and the gutsy characters facing wartime struggles and challenges, but I was surprised that the book's fantasy I really liked this, but I was surprised by how light it felt on fantasy elements. housekeeping, but she doesn't tell Arthur that she's been dreaming of the decrepit, rambling house for years

Six Great Bossy Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads The Obsessive Wrap-Up of Favorite Reads continues! You can click here for other science fiction and fantasy books that I've reviewed on Bossy Bookworm. I listened to the first installment in Shannon Chakraborty's Amina al-Sirafi fantasy series, The Adventures After twenty-two years of adventuring, Viv had reached her limit of blood and mud and bullshit. Viv has spent years hunting down creatures for bounties, wielding her sword, and doing anything ruthless

The romantic aspect is less essential than the fantasy elements, which I appreciated. Moth , considers Sybil Delling ("Six") and a group of five other foundling girls who have given up ten years But the shrouded girls, who have bonded over the years like family, begin to disappear, and Sybil doubts Gillig builds a layered fantasy world on elements of stone and water, and the moth symbolism changes For more fantasy/science fiction stories I've loved, please check out these titles .

It is one thing to admit to being feared, or hated. The imperious genius is eager to preserve the peace that has reigned for twenty-four years--but forces There is a romantic element, but this is, happily for me, a richly built fantasy and not a romantasy. More from this Author--and More Fantasy Novels I've Loved Antonia Hodgson is also the author of the Thomas You might also be interested in other fantasy books I've read and reviewed .

Kingfisher writes my favorite kind of fantasy novel: a wonderfully oddball main protagonist, a strange Kingfisher imagines richly imagined fantasy worlds, and within them she slots fantastically imperfect This is my fantasy sweet spot. More Kingfisher and other Fantasy Novels T. You can find my Bossy review of A Sorceress Comes to Call   here and reviews of other fantasy titles

For twenty years, Sciona has single-mindedly set out to learn enough complex, intuitive, precise, powerful I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book! M. L. Wang is also the author of The Sword of Kaigen  and the YA fantasy series The Volta Academy Chronicles

Novik's newest work, Buried Deep ,  is a collection of thirteen stories that span the worlds of her fantastic I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book! Naomi Novik is the author of richly wrought fantasy novels featuring main protagonists I love: Uprooted Novik has also written a series of nine fantastic books about dragons, the Temeraire series. battles within the books' alternate history, and the human protagonists are wonderfully faulted and fantastic

Fairy Tales and Retellings For this list, I focused on books with fantastical elements; clear good-and-evil I really liked this story and I still think about this book, years after reading it. still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years The Dragon keeps them safe from the Wood, but at a high price: each year he demands one young woman from She is taken for ten years to serve him.

But each of these series is complete , so if you haven't started them yet, you won't have to wait years White's And I Darken , the first book in her Conquerer's Saga series, has cover art that to me evokes fantasy This blend of historical fiction, fantasy, and paranormal continues with LaFevers's Dark Triumph , Mortal relationship growth. 04 The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black The Folk of the Air is a young adult fantasy These six books were published over a period of almost twenty-five years, and the story trail traces

The first in Holland's ocean-focused young adult fantasy series leaves much of the story for later books More Fantasy Books Sara Holland is also the author of the Everless and Havenfall series. For other fantasy books I've reviewed, check out the titles at this link .

Tale of Two Cities offered a compelling story of redemption and self-sacrifice with a significant fantasy I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse. H. G. In this historical fiction-fantasy, characters from Dickens's tale are plunged into a dark, powerful But in Parry's novel he must also reckon with his fantastical origin story (stolen by faeries and pressed

To honor Concordia's thousand years of peace between its twelve provinces, the emperor's ship sets out The friendship between Ganymedes and dark-humored 6-year-old Grasshopper is funny and sweet, and I loved I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book! If you're interested in other Bossy reviews of fantasy mysteries I've enjoyed, check out the titles at

Click the links here to explore Bossy reviews of other dystopian , fantasy , and romantasy titles.

Also, they each fear they're the one who killed him. ...maybe going on meant believing in what she couldn't In Kuang's dark academia fantasy novel Katabasis , Alice Law is a postgraduate student in a ruthlessly Murdoch, who seems to be showing her up at every turn in their relentless slog of blood, sweat, and tears This is a clever, strange, dark, and often darkly funny fantasy.

The first in the Legends & Lattes series is a cozy fantasy story about new beginnings, the transformative After twenty-two years of adventuring, Viv had reached her limit of blood and mud and bullshit. Viv has spent years hunting down creatures for bounties, wielding her sword, and doing anything ruthless This is a sweet, cozy fantasy story that feels like a big hug; it's a love letter to coffee, to the beauty

mystery in a post-colonial West African city, but I didn't feel very connected to or invested in the fantastical In Tochi Onyebuchi's fantasy mystery, main protagonist Boubacar is a war veteran and a private investigator Harmattan Season  is a dark, broody, mysterious fantasy story that takes place in an unnamed city in "Harmattan season" refers to a months-long time that spans the end of one year and beginning of the next The denouements felt somewhat tedious to me, and the fantastical aspects (the floating buildings and

While I probably should stop reading "romantasy" because I prefer my fantasy and romance to remain separate Francis's dystopian novel, Wren Darlington is a Mod who has lived under the radar for her twentysomething years I probably need to stop reading "romantasy" or "romantasy"-adjacent books, because I love fantasy stories and I love romantic comedies , but for me, the intersection of romance and fantasy is often unsatisfying her kind is complicated by the secrets she's keeping about abilities that would make her even more feared

For more fantasy novels I've loved, please check out the titles at this link .

I love a historical-fiction-feeling fantasy story like this one, and Blood of the Old Kings sets up I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book!

and the gutsy characters facing wartime struggles and challenges, but I was surprised that the book's fantasy I really liked this, but I was surprised by how light it felt on fantasy elements.

the worldbuilding and the headstrong, powerful loose cannon of Nahri, as well as the Middle Eastern fantasy I found myself yearning for the expert pacing, intrigue setup, and rich character development of my beloved character Nahri, the complex cultural backgrounds clashing in the book, and the Middle Eastern-based, fantastical I listed Amina in the Greedy Reading List Six Four-Star (and Up) Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads I Loved in the Past Year .

battles within the books' alternate history; and the human protagonists are wonderfully faulted and fantastic I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book! Naomi Novik is also the author of richly wrought fantasy novels featuring main protagonists I love: Uprooted

The dark humor is fantastic. But Kellen's magic hasn't come in--and he fears that it never will. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this book or other fantasy books you've loved!

After years under his strict control (he is not named as Dracula here), the forced isolation begins to

Twenty-two-year-old Vera is the beloved only child of two dear parents, but the rest of her life is a wearing that modern underwear! jousting!). seeping from the realm as Merlin originally posited, so her uprooting of her life and everyone else's years-long It's narrated by the fantastic Julia Whelan.

in a panic, she makes a magical deal in which she lives on...in the world of her sister's favorite fantasy I'd love to hear your thoughts about this book! Sarah Rees Brennan is also the author of the fantastic character-driven young-adult fantasy In Other

In this return to the world of Elfhame (Folk of the Air trilogy), Holly Black takes us deeper into the story of characters Wren and Oak as they determine whether they can trust each other as they attempt to save Madoc. As a child, Wren read lots of fairy tales. That’s why, when the monsters came, she knew it was because she had been wicked. In The Stolen Heir, the first book in Holly Black's Stolen Heir duology, the story returns to the world of Elfhame. (It's important to first read the Folk of the Air trilogy--see link below in order to understand the plot and character development). Suren (Wren), changeling child queen of the Court of Teeth, is forced to band together with the charming, untrustworthy Oak (fae brother of Jude), to try to save Madoc from Lady Nore's Ice Needle Citadel. Wren and Oak were once betrothed, and Wren isn't sure how much of Oak's appealing vulnerability and honesty is real--or if she's being played for a fool. But Wren isn't content to let her fate be shaped by a beautiful, magical prince. She's going to need to wrest control of her own destiny. I didn't feel drawn in by Wren, who feels lost throughout much of the story, and I didn't feel as though Oak was as fully developed as I wanted him to be. I loved the return of the storm hag Bogdana! I listened to this as an audiobook. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Click here for my review of Black's The Queen of Nothing; I mentioned the great Folk of the Air trilogy in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series.

(Her hair is dyed brown, and Odessa is given only gray clothing to wear by her stepmother, although she Dear reader, she is going to end up being brave, and finding love, and and Doing the Right Thing. Startlingly, we hear (briefly) from the Guardian's point of view at the end of the book.

This debut cozy novel showcases many of my favorite elements--magic, banter, a grumpy-sunshine hard-won romance, and a quest--within a charming, surprising story that I loved. The powerful dark lord Shadowfade is dead, and Violet Thistlewaite is determined to shed her identity as the Thornwitch, Shadowfade's right-hand woman, and start anew. She decides to settle in the nearby town of Dragon's Rest and open a flower shop, attempting to use her magical powers for good and to create beauty and inspire joy. But it's tough to tame her power when she's been trained since childhood to be expecting attacks and enacting dastardly deeds. Another new arrival to town seems bent on hooking Violet to her past. And Violet is really distracted by the handsome, grumpy alchemist who's renting her the space for her shop. Violet Thistlewaite has lots of my favorite elements: magic, a grumpy-sunshine matchup, a fresh-start promise, and a quest. This is charming, funny, and adorable. Violet has a secret that seems destined for revealing, but the sequence of events surrounding it and the reactions were wholly unexpected. I loved every bit of this book! I listened to Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore  as a library audiobook . About This Author This is Emily Krempholtz's first novel. I'm in for alll the rest. More Violet, please! The tone and the cozy-magical-mystery focus reminds me of A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping .

fiction-feeling story, a Sherlock Holmes and Watson-type investigatory relationship, and fascinating otherworldly fantasy

Scholomance series and I realized I haven't posted a stand-alone review of some of Novik's other standout fantasy

with ballet, an orphan's struggles, and Depression-era Chicago, but once Nocturne shifted into dark fantasy In Alyssa Wees's slim (it's 240 pages) fantasy novel Nocturne, set in the Little Italy of 1930s Chicago As the Depression rages, orphaned Italian immigrant Grace rises through the ranks of the Near North Ballet But once the fantasy elements became the focus, the story felt more like a series of ethereal concepts You can check out my Bossy reviews of other fantasy titles here.

I love a mix of historical fiction and fantasy, and while this novel isn't as layered and complex or

The cover is arresting, and the sparkles and art are a nod to the novel's fantasy genre. I listened to Bull Moon Rising in audiobook form, and hearing it all read to me may have exacerbated I loved that Aspeth is a plus-size woman who loves books and wears glasses and is the irresistible object I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book!

I'd love to hear your Bossy thoughts about this book!

excited to read this final installment in Freya Marske's Last Binding trilogy, a queer historical fiction fantasy-mystery and compromise, and Marske's storytelling is yet again charming, funny, sometimes dark, and always fantastic

comes into play in various forms is a revised understanding of the Other (vampires), pushing those who fear

housekeeping, but she doesn't tell Arthur that she's been dreaming of the decrepit, rambling house for years The supporting characters are fantastically odd, fiercely loyal, and a heartwarming support for a girl

We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years The Dragon keeps them safe from the Wood, but at a high price: each year he demands one young woman from She is taken for ten years to serve him. battles within the books' alternate history, and the human protagonists are wonderfully faulted and fantastic

I read the first in that series, The Magicians , for but me it was short on magic and fantastical elements

In Blanchet's young adult fantasy debut, Herrick's End, Ollie's only friend Gwen has disappeared.

“Fear stops life, not death.” Faizal combines secret identities, intricate plots, vampires!

This fantasy novel about the power of storytelling was wonderful. I'm in the middle of a small but fantastic pattern of reading female-knight-driven stories; check out

Bovalino's story hooked me with a main protagonist who's a female knight, her best-friend mage, intriguing magic, a terrifying destiny, showstopping secrets, danger and adventure, and a deep romantic connection. I loved every bit of the first book in Bovalino's Hand and the Heart series. Captain Grey Flynn is a knight pledged to protect the mage Kier, who she has known since she was a child. She is not only a blade but a source of magic, a well. Unbeknownst to others, she and Kier have gone through a forbidden process to become tethered, so that magic flows between them like an unspoken language. But Grey is also secretly in love with Kier. Early in the story Grey, Kier, and choice members of their army are assigned to the protection of a young woman and told to spirit her through the mountains to safety. She is believed by many to be the key to the land's future and the heir to its magic. But she is not who the army thinks she is...and Grey herself is hiding an enormous secret about her own identity, which not even Kier knows. This, my friends, is my sweet spot for romantasy. There is no Outrageous Character Swooning meant to stand in for actual character development or used as a shortcut to attraction and bonds. Bovalino offers a wonderful in medias res introduction to the deep emotional and platonic, affectionate connections between Grey and Kier. What keeps the main protagonists apart is a realistic-feeling set of emotional barriers intended to preserve their lifelong friendship--the stakes of messing with their friendship are understandably high. And Grey's secret is significant; it keeps her somewhat at an emotional distance from Kier. All of this feels warranted. As danger intrudes upon the story and everything Grey and Kier have known feels up in the air, their relationship changes, and the dramatic development of a romantic relationship when death is breathing down their necks feels warranted, perfectly complicated, and heartstoppingly saucy. When the swooning arrives, it's after Bovalino has set the perfect stage for it. The magic in Bovalino's world is strange and the circumstances around the island feel like a grayscale, murky pause in the book's action and a potentially heartbreakng tease of a second chance. The pacing sloooowed during this section, but I was invested. I found the ending a little bit unsatisfying, but I didn't expect the direction the story took, either. Bovalino doesn't offer easy answers, but messy, fought-for, and deserved resolutions. I loved this. I listened to The Second Death of Locke  as a library audiobook on Libby . Please check out these Bossy reviews of medieval-set books . You can click this link for more books about knights. More from V. L. Bovalino The second book in the Hand and the Heart series is currently scheduled for publication in fall 2026 and is titled The Thief and the Traitor Bride . Bovalino writes young adult novels under the name Tori Bovalino; this is her first book for adults.