10 Fantasy Books to Escape Into This Summer

Hey FIREreaders!

We may have just finished our Furyborn book club on Instagram, but we're already ready to dive into our next fantasy read! Check out this list of epic YA fantasy books perfect for escaping into this summer! If you're looking for more book recs, take a look at this round up of must-have LGBTQ reads! Happy reading!

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1. The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska

​Every year on St. Walpurga's Eve, Caldella’s Witch Queen lures a boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking. 

Lina Kirk is convinced her brother is going to be taken this year. To save him, she enlists the help of Thomas Lin, the boy she secretly loves, and the only person to ever escape from the palace. But they draw the queen’s attention, and Thomas is chosen as the sacrifice. 

Queen Eva watched her sister die to save the boy she loved. Now as queen, she won't make the same mistake. She's willing to sacrifice anyone if it means saving herself and her city.

When Lina offers herself to the queen in exchange for Thomas’s freedom, the two girls await the full moon together. But Lina is not at all what Eva expected, and the queen is nothing like Lina envisioned. Against their will, they find themselves falling for each other as water floods Caldella’s streets and the dark tide demands its sacrifice.

• Preorder The Dark Tide now!

2. Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau

​I will not fall. I will not flee. I will not break.

As a Charmer, Leena Edenfrell can tame the rare magical beasts that inhabit her world. When she’s falsely accused of using her magic to charm a human, she’s exiled and forced to sell her beloved beasts to survive. It’s heartbreaking work, but if she can just make it through the next week, she’ll have everything she needs to prove her innocence and return to the only home she’s ever known.

That is, until she learns that the Charmer’s Council has sent Noc, the realm’s deadliest hunter, to find her. And Noc will stop at nothing until she’d dead.

Determined to evade capture, Leena offers the dangerous assassin a deal: four magical beasts in exchange for her life…beasts with powers strong enough to break the curse that’s killed everyone he’s ever loved. Noc needs Leena. Yet as these unlikely allies cross the realm in search of mythical creatures, Leena can’t help but feel that Noc is hiding something—and that, no matter how hard she fights, her time may soon be running out.

• Buy Kingdom of Exiles now!
• Preorder the sequel, The Frozen Prince, now!

3. Furyborn by Claire Legrand

An epic YA fantasy about two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world…or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and one of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed as the Blood Queen...unless the trials kill the queen first.

One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable—until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world—and of each other.

• Buy Furyborn now!
• Purchase the sequel, Kingsbane, now!
• Preorder the epic finale, Lightbringer, now!

4. The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

​A story of scorned witches, sinister curses, and resurrection, The Bone Witch is the start of a dark fantasy trilogy, perfect for fans of Serpent & Dove and The Cruel Prince.

Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price...

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother, Fox, from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha—one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.

• Buy The Bone Witch now!
• Purchase the sequel, The Heart Forger, now!
• Buy the series conclusion, The Shadowglass, now!

5. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

​The highly acclaimed Latinx-infused Queer fantasy from Zoraida Córdova following three sisters—and teen witches—as they develop their powers and battle magic through epic questing and in realms beyond.

Alex is a bruja and the most powerful witch in her family. But she's hated magic ever since it made her father disappear into thin air. So while most girls celebrate their Quinceañera, Alex prepares for Death Day—the most important day in a bruja's life and her only opportunity to rid herself of magic.

But the curse she performs during the ceremony backfires, and her family vanishes, forcing Alex to absorb all of the magic from her family line. Left alone, Alex seeks help from Nova, a brujo with ambitions of his own.

To get her family back they must travel to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland. And while she's there, what she discovers about herself, her powers, and her family, will change everything…

• Buy Labyrinth Lost now!
• Purchase the sequel, Bruja Born, now!
• Preorder the series conclusion, Wayward Witch, now!

6. Reverie by Ryan La Sala

A “joyously, riotously queer” (Kirkus) young adult fantasy from debut author Ryan La Sala, Reverie is a wildly imaginative story about dreams becoming reality.

A few weeks ago, Kane Montgomery was in an accident that robbed him of his memory. The only thing he knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. The world as he knows it feels different—reality seems different. And when strange things start happening around him, Kane isn’t sure where to turn. 

And then three of his classmates show up, claiming to be his friends and the only people who can tell him what’s truly going on. Kane doesn’t know what to believe or who he can trust.

But as he and the others are dragged into increasingly fantastical dream worlds drawn from imagination, it becomes clear that there is dark magic at work. Nothing in Kane’s life is an accident, and only he can keep the world itself from unraveling.

• Buy Reverie now!

7. The Storm Crow by Kalyn Josephson

​A YA fantasy series that follows a fallen princess who ignites a rebellion to bring back the magical elemental crows that were taken from her people.

Princess Thia was born to be a crow rider—a warrior. In her kingdom of Rhodaire, magical elemental crows keep the city running. But when the Illucian empire invades, they kill all the crows in a horrible fire that also robs Thia of her mother and mentor. 

Then Thia’s sister, Caliza, becomes the new queen of Rhodaire, she is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the Illucian heir in an effort to save her people. Prince Ericen is rude and cruel and Thia can’t imagine traveling into the heart of an enemy city after so much has been taken from her.

But before she leaves, she finds a crow egg in the rubble of the rookery. Deep in the heart of Ilucia she must hatch the last crow, hold her own against the crown prince, and ignite a rebellion to take back what is hers.

• Buy The Storm Crow now!
• Preorder the thrilling conclusion, The Crow Rider, now!

8. Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller

Two young women must trade lives, work together to stay alive, and end a war caused by magic and greed.

Emilie des Marais is more at home holding scalpels than embroidery needles and is desperate to escape her noble roots to serve her country as a physician. But society dictates a noble lady cannot perform such gruesome work.

Annette Boucher, overlooked and overworked by her family, wants more from life than her humble beginnings and is desperate to be trained in magic. So when a strange noble girl offers Annette the chance of a lifetime, she accepts.

Emilie and Annette swap lives—Annette attends finishing school as a noble lady to be trained in the ways of divination, while Emilie enrolls to be a physician's assistant, using her natural magical talent to save lives.

But when their nation instigates a terrible war, Emilie and Annette come together to help the rebellion unearth the truth before it's too late.

• ​Buy Belle Révolte now!

9. Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco

​When a hidden prince, a girl with secrets, a ragtag group of unlikely heroes, and a legendary firebird come together…something wicked is going down. From the highly acclaimed author of The Bone Witch trilogy comes this enchanting new YA fairytale.

Many years ago, the magical Kingdom of Avalon was left encased in ice when the Snow Queen waged war. Its former citizens are now refugees in a world mostly devoid of magic. Which is why the crown prince and his protectors are stuck in…Arizona. 

Prince Alexei, the sole survivor of the Avalon royal family, is hiding in a town so boring, magic doesn’t even work there. Few know his secret identity, but his friend Tala is one of them.

A new hope for their abandoned homeland reignites when a famous creature of legend, the Firebird, appears for the first time in decades. Alex and Tala must unite with a ragtag group of new friends to journey back to Avalon for a showdown that will change the world as they know it.

• Buy Wicked As You Wish now!

10. Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

I needed to win. They needed to die.

Sallot Leon is a thief, and a good one at that. But gender fluid Sal wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class—and the nobles who destroyed their home. 

When Sal steals a flyer for an audition to become a member of The Left Hand—the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears—Sal jumps at the chance to infiltrate the court and get revenge. 

But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. 

As Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive.

• Buy Mask of Shadows now!
• Purchase the conclusion to the duology, Ruin of Stars, now!

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Have you read any of these? Let us know in the comments what you thought of them! Don't forget to leave your recommendations too!

​Happy Reading!