Most Read YA Fantasy Books

Ketterdam is a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price — and no one knows that better than Kaz Brekker, a young criminal prodigy who runs the streets of the Barrel with cold precision. When Kaz is offered a payout large enough to set him up for life, the catch is a heist no one has ever survived: break into the impregnable Ice Court in Fjerda and free a prisoner whose knowledge could tip the balance of world power. The job is impossible for any one person, so Kaz assembles a crew of six dangerous outcasts — a convict, a sharpshooter, a runaway, a spy, a Grisha Heartrender, and a demolitions expert — each with their own reasons for taking the risk and their own secrets to protect. Told through rotating points of view, the novel unfolds as an intricate caper thick with double-crosses and improvised gambles, gradually revealing the old wounds and hard-won loyalties that bind the crew together. Set in the same world as the Shadow and Bone trilogy but standing fully on its own, Six of Crows pairs a twisting heist plot with morally complicated characters who feel real in their damage and their wit. It launched the Six of Crows duology and became one of the defining fantasy series for young adult readers.

• heist
• found family
• morally grey
• multiple povs

Having survived her brutal first year in the Riders Quadrant, Violet Sorrengail returns to Basgiath War College to find the rules have changed. The new leadership—led by a sadistic vice commandant—makes it clear that cadets who don't fall in line won't survive to graduate, and Violet's loyalties are under a microscope. She and Xaden Riorson are more entangled than ever, but the secrets he's still keeping put a wall between them at the worst possible moment. As the physical trials grow crueler and the interrogations more dangerous, Violet is forced to decide who she can trust with the truth about Navarre's crumbling defenses. The threat she glimpsed at the end of her first year is no longer a rumor, and proving it will mean risking everything—her rank, her dragons, and the people she loves. The second book in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series raises the stakes on both the battlefield and the romance, pushing Violet from a fight for personal survival toward a fight for the kingdom's future. Expect brutal training, hard-won alliances, and a relationship tested by secrets and impossible choices.

Crooked Kingdom picks up in the aftermath of the crew's audacious Ice Court job. Back in Ketterdam and double-crossed out of their promised reward, Kaz Brekker and his band of outcasts find themselves hunted by rival gangs, corrupt merchants, and foreign powers all circling the city. To collect what they're owed — and to rescue one of their own — Kaz must spin a con more dangerous than any heist, playing Ketterdam's ruthless power brokers against one another. As the schemes escalate, the novel deepens each character's backstory and tests the loyalties that hold the crew together, building toward a conclusion that pays off the duology's threads of revenge, grief, and hard-won trust. Told through the same rotating viewpoints as Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom trades some of the first book's tight caper structure for a sprawling, city-wide chess match. The second and final volume of the Six of Crows duology, it closes out one of the most beloved character arcs in modern young adult fantasy while standing as a satisfying payoff to the crew's story.

• found family
• morally grey
• multiple povs
• revenge

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swathe of near-impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters that feed on human flesh. Alina Starkov, an orphaned junior cartographer in the First Army, has never been remarkable at anything — until her regiment is attacked crossing the Fold and a dormant power erupts out of her, a light strong enough to save them all. Torn from everything she knows, including her lifelong friend Mal, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, Ravka's magical elite. There she comes under the wing of the Darkling, the enigmatic and dangerous leader of the Grisha, who believes Alina's gift as the Sun Summoner may finally be the key to unmaking the Fold. But as she is drawn deeper into a glittering world of luxury and intrigue, Alina begins to realise that nothing at court is what it seems — and that the fate of a nation may rest on her shoulders alone. The opening book of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy and the gateway to the sprawling Grishaverse, this is Russian-influenced young-adult fantasy rich with magic, court politics, and a fraught love triangle.

• chosen one
• love triangle
• court intrigue
• coming of age

Scarlett Dragna has spent her whole life on a small, isolated island under the thumb of a cruel and violent father, dreaming of Caraval, the legendary once-a-year performance where the audience doesn't just watch the spectacle but becomes part of it. With her arranged marriage looming, she has all but given up hope of ever seeing it. Then the long-awaited invitation arrives, and her reckless, magnetic sister Tella whisks her away to the mysterious island where the game is held. Almost at once, Tella is kidnapped by Legend, Caraval's enigmatic master of ceremonies, and made the prize at the center of this year's game. Scarlett has just five nights to find her sister before Caraval ends, navigating a world where nothing is quite what it seems and where losing herself in the illusion could cost her everything. Aided by a charming, secretive sailor named Julian, she is pulled deeper into a dazzling, dangerous puzzle in which love, deceit, and magic are impossible to tell apart. Stephanie Garber's debut is a lush, atmospheric young-adult fantasy built on a central warning: it's only a game. Rich with sensory magic and sleight-of-hand twists, Caraval launched a bestselling series and a wider fairy-tale universe.

• quest
• coming of age

Iris Winnow is a young typist at a newspaper in the city of Oath, competing for a columnist position against the infuriatingly talented Roman Kitt. But Iris has more pressing worries: her brother has vanished to the front of a war between the gods Enva and Dacre, and her mother is drinking herself into ruin. When Iris begins slipping letters beneath her wardrobe door, they are magically delivered to a stranger who writes back — a correspondence that becomes her one source of comfort, and whose author's identity she cannot guess. When Iris leaves the newspaper to work as a war correspondent, she travels to the small town of Avalon Bluff, close to the fighting, determined to find her brother and report the truth of a conflict most people would rather ignore. There the war stops being an abstraction, and the connection she has built through her letters follows her in ways she never expected. The first book in Rebecca Ross's Letters of Enchantment duology, Divine Rivals blends a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance with a lightly historical, roughly early-twentieth-century setting and a mythology of feuding gods. It is a story about writing as a way of reaching another person, and about the ordinary courage of those caught up in a war they did not choose.

• enemies to lovers
• epistolary
• slow burn

Eighteen months of war college have left Violet Sorrengail battle-hardened, but the threats closing in on Navarre are bigger than anything Basgiath prepared her for. With enemies pressing from outside the wards and treachery festering within, Violet realizes the kingdom cannot hold without help—and the only allies who might turn the tide lie across uncharted seas. The search takes Violet and her fellow riders far beyond the map they know, into unfamiliar lands where the rules of power, magic, and loyalty are different, and where every potential ally comes with a price. As she races to secure the army and the magic Navarre desperately needs, the secret she's guarding grows heavier, and the cost of the truth climbs higher. The third book in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series widens the world beyond the college walls, trading some of the classroom trials for a perilous quest across new territory. It's a high-stakes middle chapter that deepens the mythology, tests the central romance under fresh pressure, and sets the board for the conflicts still to come.

Jude was seven years old when a faerie knight murdered her parents and carried her and her two sisters across the sea to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude is a mortal girl raised among immortals — and she wants nothing more than to belong, even though the fey despise humans and take cruel pleasure in reminding her that she does not. Chief among her tormentors is Prince Cardan, the youngest and most vicious son of the High King. To secure a place at court and protect herself and her sisters, Jude defies him — and is drawn into a dangerous web of palace intrigue, shifting alliances, and outright treason. As rival factions maneuver for the throne, she discovers she is willing to do almost anything, and become almost anyone, to survive and to win power in a world that was never meant to be hers. The first book in Holly Black's bestselling Folk of the Air trilogy, The Cruel Prince is a sharp, seductive fantasy of ambition, betrayal, and the fine line between hatred and desire.

• enemies to lovers
• court intrigue
• morally grey

Elspeth Spindle hides a second voice in her head — an ancient spirit called the Nightmare — while a secret circle races to collect twelve magical Providence Cards and lift the curse plaguing the kingdom of Blunder. A gothic dark fantasy with a slow-burn romance and a monster she can't fully trust.

• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• court intrigue
• morally grey

When Clary Fray discovers a hidden world of demon hunters, her ordinary life is turned upside down. She's drawn into a dangerous conflict in New York City, where vampires and werewolves are real, and forbidden love might be the least of her worries. This is the start of an epic urban fantasy adventure.

• chosen one
• found family
• secret identity
• forbidden love

Hunted across the True Sea, Alina Starkov and her childhood friend Mal are trying to outrun the reach of the Darkling and the burden of Alina's growing power. But a life of quiet anonymity was never truly possible for the Sun Summoner, and the ties that bind her to Ravka — and to the Fold — cannot be severed by distance alone. Soon Alina is pulled back into the fight for her country, and into a widening war for its throne. Back on Ravkan soil, Alina must take up the mantle of leadership she never wanted, uniting the Grisha and the common people against a threat that grows stronger with every passing day. Her search for a legendary second amplifier to boost her powers brings danger, temptation, and a charismatic new ally: the daring privateer prince Nikolai Lantsov, whose ambitions for Ravka may rival even the Darkling's. The second book in Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy raises the stakes of the Grishaverse, deepening its political intrigue and its central conflict as Alina is forced to choose what kind of leader — and what kind of person — she intends to become.

• chosen one
• love triangle
• court intrigue

Jude rules Faerie from behind the throne, the cruel king Cardan bound to obey her — but power in Elfhame is never safe. As the Undersea presses its claims and a traitor moves within her own circle, Jude must outwit enemies on all sides while the dangerous attraction between her and Cardan grows harder to deny. The second book of Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy: sharp, romantic, and full of betrayal.

• enemies to lovers
• court intrigue
• morally grey

The Darkling rules Ravka from the shadows, and the Shadow Fold has swallowed the land in darkness. Weakened and half-broken, Alina Starkov is hidden away underground, kept from the daylight that fuels her power and increasingly at the mercy of the fanatical priest known as the Apparat, whose followers have begun to worship her as a living Saint. Cut off from the throne and the war she once tried to lead, Alina must find a way to break free. Reunited with Mal and the ragged remnants of her friends, Alina sets out on a final, desperate hunt for the last of Morozova's amplifiers — the legendary firebird — the one thing that might give her the strength to face the Darkling and end the ruin he has unleashed. But the deeper she digs into the mystery of the amplifiers, the more she learns about their true cost, and about the ties that bind her to the enemy she is sworn to destroy. The concluding book of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy brings Alina's story to its reckoning, testing every loyalty and every sacrifice as the fate of Ravka hangs in the balance.

• chosen one
• love triangle
• sacrifice

Exiled to the mortal world and stripped of her power, Jude Duarte is pulled back into Faerie when her twin sister comes to her in desperation. Returning means facing the court that cast her out, a realm sliding toward war, and her unfinished bond with Cardan. To reclaim what she lost and save Elfhame, Jude stakes everything on one bold deception. The blazing conclusion to Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy.

• enemies to lovers
• court intrigue
• morally grey

Following clues in his late grandfather's stories, teenage Jacob finds a time-looped home on a Welsh island where children with strange gifts shelter from the monsters that hunt them. An atmospheric YA fantasy built around eerie vintage photographs; first in the series.

• found family
• time loop

Bree Matthews infiltrates a secret society of Arthurian descendants after witnessing something impossible on her first night at a UNC-Chapel Hill early-college program. Her search for the truth behind her mother's death uncovers a magic of her own — and a legacy of power and racism inside the Order itself.

• chosen one
• secret identity
• coming of age

In the kingdom of Ilya, the Purging rid the population of the "Ordinary" — those born without powers. Only the Elites, gifted with supernatural abilities, are meant to remain. But Paedyn Gray, a thief surviving in the slums, is an Ordinary who has kept herself alive by pretending to be a Psychic, reading people rather than minds. When Paedyn instinctively saves the life of Prince Kai, the Enforcer whose duty is to hunt and kill people exactly like her, she is thrust into the Purging Trials — a brutal, public competition among Elites where any misstep could expose her as powerless. As she fights to survive round after round, Paedyn and Kai are drawn together by a dangerous attraction neither can afford, each hiding a secret that could destroy the other. The first book in Lauren Roberts's bestselling Powerless trilogy, this is a fast-paced YA romantasy of forbidden romance, deadly competition, and a heroine forced to hide who she truly is in a world that wants her dead.

• secret identity
• enemies to lovers

After his family is murdered one night, a toddler wanders out of his home and up the hill into an old graveyard, where the resident ghosts take him in and grant him the Freedom of the Graveyard. Named Nobody Owens — Bod for short — he is raised by a loving pair of ghostly parents and watched over by Silas, a mysterious guardian who is neither living nor dead and who can pass beyond the graveyard's walls to bring the boy food and knowledge. Growing up among the dead, Bod learns their uncanny skills — to Fade, to Dreamwalk, to slip through the boundary between worlds — while longing for the world of the living. But the man who killed his family is still out there, patiently searching for the child who got away, and the graveyard cannot shelter Bod forever. Neil Gaiman's Newbery- and Carnegie-winning The Graveyard Book is a spellbinding, gently macabre coming-of-age fantasy — a graveyard reimagining of The Jungle Book, full of wonder, danger, and heart.

• found family
• coming of age

With eleven of the twelve Providence Cards gathered, Elspeth and Ravyn race to find the last before the Solstice, guided by the very monster in Elspeth's mind who may no longer want the curse broken. Told across shifting points of view, the duology's conclusion brings its court intrigue, romance, and creeping dread to a close.

• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• court intrigue
• multiple povs

Evangeline Fox has always believed in true love and happy endings — until she learns that the boy she loves is about to marry her stepsister. Desperate to stop the wedding, she turns to the one person legend says can help: Jacks, the beautiful and dangerous Prince of Hearts. He agrees, on a single condition — three kisses, to be claimed at the time and place of his choosing. The bargain works, but not at all the way Evangeline hoped. Swept from her small town into the glittering, treacherous world of the Magnificent North, she discovers that deals with immortals always cost more than they promise, and that Jacks wants something from her far greater than a stopped wedding. Caught among wicked princes, cursed fairy tales, and her own stubborn hope, Evangeline must decide who to trust in a place where every happily ever after seems to come with a catch. Set in the world of Caraval, Once Upon a Broken Heart is a lush, romantic fantasy about heartbreak, dangerous bargains, and the fine line between a fairy tale and a curse.

Olivia Prior has grown up at Merilance School for Independent Girls, an orphan who cannot speak and who has always seen things others cannot — the grey, half-decayed ghouls that drift at the edges of the world. All she has of her family is a journal her mother left behind, its later pages a frantic warning: Olivia, you must not go to Gallant. So when a letter arrives inviting her to Gallant, the crumbling country estate of the family she never knew, Olivia goes anyway. There she finds an unwelcoming cousin, a house full of secrets, and two unbreakable rules: never go out after dark, and never cross the ruined wall at the western edge of the grounds. Beyond that wall lies a shadow version of Gallant — a dead and colorless mirror-world ruled by a figure who has been waiting a very long time for a Prior to come home. V.E. Schwab's atmospheric gothic fantasy is a haunting, beautifully eerie story about family, belonging, and the thin door between the living world and the dark — anchored by a fierce, wordless heroine determined to hold that door shut.

In the land of Ingary, where seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, Sophie Hatter has resigned herself to a dull future. As the eldest of three sisters, she is sure she is doomed to fail first and worst, so she settles quietly into the family hat shop. Then the fearsome Witch of the Waste sweeps in and curses her, turning Sophie into a stooped old woman who cannot tell anyone what has happened to her. With nothing left to lose, Sophie leaves home and bluffs her way into the magical, ambulatory castle of the notorious Wizard Howl — a vain, slippery heartbreaker rumored to devour the souls of young women. Inside she finds Howl's young apprentice Michael and a sardonic fire demon named Calcifer, who is bound to Howl by a secret contract. Calcifer offers Sophie a bargain: break the spell that ties him to Howl, and he will break the spell that has aged her. Diana Wynne Jones's beloved fantasy is a witty, warm-hearted tangle of curses, contracts, and mistaken assumptions, in which a supposedly ordinary young woman discovers she is anything but. The first book in the World of Howl trilogy, it later inspired Studio Ghibli's celebrated animated film.

• coming of age

Reeling from betrayal and the truth about the man she trusted, Poppy is taken deep into the kingdom of Atlantia — captive, bargaining chip, and something harder to name. As she navigates a court that may want her dead and a bond she can't deny, she clings to one goal: finding her brother and learning what of her old life was ever true. The second Blood and Ash book widens the world and raises the stakes.

• enemies to lovers
• forbidden love

After her parents die, Grace Foster moves to Katmere Academy, a boarding school in Alaska that turns out to be home to vampires, witches, shifters, and other supernaturals. As the only human on campus, she becomes an object of suspicion for every faction — except Jaxon Vega, a vampire guarding secrets of his own.

• academy
• forbidden love

Clary Fray's life is anything but normal as she navigates the dangerous world of Shadowhunters, where demons are real and magic is a daily reality. Torn between her growing feelings for her best friend Simon and the complicated, intense connection with Jace, her newfound brother, Clary must confront a terrifying truth: her father, Valentine, is a dangerous rogue Shadowhunter. As a series of murders rocks the Downworlder community, Clary races against time to find the Soul-Sword and stop Valentine's sinister plans, all while Jace faces accusations that could shatter his world.

• love triangle
• forbidden love
• betrayal
• found family

Evangeline Fox appears to have her fairy-tale ending — a prince, a castle, a happy life — but she has no memory of what it cost her, and those around her mean to keep it hidden. As enemies close in and the truth claws its way to the surface, the story that began with a broken heart reaches its final reckoning. The conclusion to the trilogy.

• morally grey
• forbidden love

In a world split by the color of blood, common Reds serve the superhuman Silver elite. Mare Barrow, a Red thief from a poor village, discovers she wields a lethal power of her own, one that should be impossible. To hide the anomaly, the Silver king passes her off as a lost noble and betroths her to a prince, thrusting her into a glittering, treacherous court while a Red rebellion gathers in the shadows. A fast, twist-driven YA fantasy about power, class, and betrayal.

• betrayal
• love triangle
• court intrigue

Eleanor West runs a boarding school for children who fell through doors into other worlds and were cast back. Nancy, newly arrived from the still Halls of the Dead, finds kinship among fellow students until a murder threatens the school's fragile sanctuary.

• portal fantasy
• found family
• coming of age

Shiori, the only princess of Kiata, hides forbidden magic — and when it slips loose, her sorceress stepmother banishes her and curses her six brothers into cranes, warning that if Shiori speaks a single word, one brother will die. Voiceless and alone, she must break the enchantment and uncover her stepmother's secrets. Elizabeth Lim's lush YA fantasy retells the fairy tale of the wild swans through East Asian mythology.

• quest

Farm boy Eragon finds a mysterious blue stone that hatches into a dragon, binding him to Saphira and to the lost legacy of the Dragon Riders. Hunted by the servants of the tyrant Galbatorix, he flees into a wider world with the old storyteller Brom. The first book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle: a sweeping epic fantasy of dragons, destiny, and coming of age.

• chosen one
• coming of age
• mentor figure
• quest