Most read YA Fantasy books

As Voldemort's grip tightens on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds, Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects dangers may even lie within the castle, while Dumbledore prepares him for the looming battle by exploring the Dark Lord's past. To help him navigate his difficult schoolwork, Harry relies on an old textbook annotated by the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

An eighteen-year-old assassin is pulled from a year's hard labour in the salt mines of Endovier and offered a bargain: win the King of Adarlan's tournament for the post of royal champion, serve four years, and walk free. Part competition, part murder mystery, as the rival contenders begin dying in strange and violent ways.

• court intrigue
• love triangle
• mystery box
• morally grey

Having won the king's tournament, Celaena Sardothien now serves as Adarlan's royal champion — officially an assassin bound to the Crown, dispatched to silence the king's enemies. In practice, she is deceiving him. The men she is sent to kill are not dying; she is faking their deaths and letting them escape. But maintaining that deception becomes more dangerous as the king's suspicions grow and the stakes of what she is hiding rise beyond her own survival. Meanwhile, her closest friend Nehemia is pursuing her own agenda at court — one that carries consequences Celaena will not see coming until it is too late. The world of Throne of Glass expands decisively in this second instalment, which introduces Wyrdmarks, ancient magic, and the first glimpse of the larger war that will define the series. Crown of Midnight is the book in which the series shifts register — darker, more complex, and unwilling to soften its losses.

• court intrigue

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

Aelin Galathynius — formerly known as Celaena Sardothien, the truth of her identity now acknowledged — travels to Wendlyn on a mission that is, on the surface, an assassination job. What the king doesn't know is that Wendlyn is also where Rowan Whitethorn lives, an ancient Fae warrior who serves the Fae queen Maeve, and who has been tasked with training Aelin in the raw, barely controlled magic she has spent years suppressing. Their training is brutal, their early relationship a sustained antagonism, but through it Aelin begins to claim the fire and power she was born with. Back in Adarlan, Chaol Westfall risks everything to support a rebel movement, and Dorian Havilliard struggles to hide his growing magic from his murderous father. Heir of Fire is the point at which the Throne of Glass series transforms from a court-centred story into an epic fantasy — expanding the cast, the geography, and the scale of the war to come.

• enemies to lovers

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

Aelin Galathynius returns to Rifthold — the capital of the empire that enslaved her — with a list of scores to settle. Arobynn Ahamar, who sold her and Sam to their fates, is at the top of it. So is the Valg prince possessing the body of her former friend and ally. So is breaking Dorian Havilliard free from the demon that has taken him. Aelin moves through the city with Rowan at her side, building alliances, collecting debts, and playing multiple political angles simultaneously — her old court savvy now combined with the full force of her claimed power. Meanwhile, Manon Blackbeak's arc takes a decisive turn as the truth about the witches' history and the cost of their alliance with Adarlan comes into focus. Longer and more structurally complex than its predecessors, Queen of Shadows is the instalment where Aelin fully inhabits her role as a player rather than a pawn — and begins to build the coalition that will carry the war's final stage.

• revenge
• court intrigue

Five novellas following Celaena Sardothien before Throne of Glass, culminating in Sam's death and her imprisonment in Endovier.

• morally grey
• betrayal
• sacrifice
• coming of age

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

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
• mystery box
• fake dating

As the war against Erawan reaches its critical phase, Chaol Westfall — former Captain of the Guard, now hobbled by a spinal injury sustained in Queen of Shadows — travels to the Southern Continent with Nesryn Faliq to seek military aid from the Khagan of the Southern Continent and his army. What begins as a diplomatic mission becomes a murder investigation and a reckoning as Chaol works with a healer named Yrene Towers — whose journey to the Torre Cesme was enabled years ago by a young assassin who passed through Innish — to heal not just his body but the wounds he has been carrying since Crown of Midnight. Set in the city of Antica and the Khagan's palace, Tower of Dawn expands the Throne of Glass world beyond Adarlan into a richly developed Southern Continent with its own politics, culture, and stakes. It takes place simultaneously with the events of Empire of Storms and converges with Kingdom of Ash.

• court intrigue
• slow burn
• redemption arc

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

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

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
• betrayal

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.

• morally grey
• enemies to lovers
• slow burn
• betrayal

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

The final book in Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy brings Jude Duarte's story to its blazing conclusion. Stripped of her power and cast out of the only home she has fought so hard to claim, Jude is living in exile in the mortal world, restless and furious, when her twin sister arrives with a desperate plea that offers a way back to Faerie. Returning means walking straight into the danger she was banished from — a court on the brink of war, old enemies circling, and the unresolved bond with Cardan that she can neither escape nor name. To win back what was taken from her and protect the realm from destruction, Jude will have to gamble everything on a single, audacious deception. The Queen of Nothing is a fast, satisfying finale that pays off the trilogy's long game of ambition, love, and betrayal, and asks what Jude is truly willing to become to hold on to power and to the people she loves.

• enemies to lovers
• court intrigue
• morally grey

The second Mortal Instruments novel. With her mother in a coma and Valentine loose in New York, Clary Fray must free Jace from the Inquisitor's custody and stop her father claiming the Soul-Sword — while discovering she can draw runes no Shadowhunter has seen before.

• love triangle
• forbidden love
• betrayal
• found family

In a world where magic is outlawed and those who wield it are hunted, a young woman discovers a dangerous secret that could change everything. She must navigate a treacherous path between loyalty and rebellion, all while confronting forbidden feelings for someone she should despise. Will she embrace her power and fight for a better future, or will the darkness consume her?

• secret identity
• enemies to lovers
• forbidden love
• slow burn

Humanity has conquered death, and the world is governed by a benevolent AI called the Thunderhead. The only deaths that remain are carried out by scythes, who keep the population in balance through an act called gleaning. When teenagers Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice under the principled Scythe Faraday, they must learn the art of taking a life—knowing only one of them will earn the ring. As a rift opens within the scythedom between solemn duty and outright bloodlust, both are forced to confront what it means to kill with conscience. The opening novel of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy.

• morally grey
• coming of age
• mentor figure
• rivals

Mare Barrow lives in a world divided by blood. The Reds are common laborers, ruled by a Silver elite whose god-like abilities, controlling fire, metal, minds, make them all but untouchable. Mare is a Red from the Stilts, scraping by as a thief until an accident at the Silver palace reveals that she, too, has a power, one no Red should possess. To keep the impossible a secret, the king disguises Mare as a long-lost Silver noble and betroths her to a prince, dropping her into a dangerous royal court where every smile hides a knife. Torn between the boy she is promised to, the brother who watches her too closely, and the growing Red rebellion that sees her as a symbol, Mare learns that anyone can betray anyone. The first book in Victoria Aveyard's bestselling series is a propulsive fantasy of court intrigue, uprising, and the treacherous cost of power.

• betrayal
• love triangle
• court intrigue
• secret identity

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
• quest

Sixteen-year-old Linh Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing — and a cyborg, which makes her the legal property of a stepmother who despises her. When letumosis reaches her family and Crown Prince Kai brings a broken android to her market booth, Cinder is pulled into a struggle between the Eastern Commonwealth and the ruthless Queen Levana of Luna — and toward a truth about her own past she never suspected.

• chosen one
• coming of age
• secret identity
• forbidden love

To save her mother, Clary must venture into the forbidden City of Glass, the Shadowhunters' hidden home. But entering without permission means death, and Jace doesn't want her there. As secrets of her family's past surface and Valentine gathers his forces, Clary must find a way to unite Downworlders and Shadowhunters against a common enemy, even if it means confronting deadly truths and making impossible choices.

• quest
• betrayal
• found family

Donatella Dragna has escaped Caraval alive, but she is far from free. To save herself and her sister, Tella struck a bargain with a mysterious benefactor, and the price is Legend's true name, a secret the master of Caraval has guarded for as long as anyone can remember. When a new game begins in the imperial capital, this time with the fate of an empire in play, Tella returns to the board determined to win the answer she owes. Told largely from Tella's bold, impulsive point of view, this sequel trades the closed island of the first book for the glittering intrigue of the Meridian Empire's court. As Tella chases Legend's identity through a maze of masked players, ancient Fates stirring back to life, and a dangerous attraction to a magnetic and lethal suitor, she learns that the game's magic reaches far beyond a single performance, and that the people she is playing against may be immortal. Stephanie Garber's Legendary raises the stakes of the Caraval world, deepening its mythology of Fates and cursed cards while keeping the sensory spectacle and twisty misdirection that defined the first book. It sets the pieces for the trilogy's finale.

• court intrigue

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

A curse threatens everything Evangeline Fox thought she'd won, forcing her into an uneasy alliance with Jacks, the Prince of Hearts. Together they chase legends across the Magnificent North toward an arch that can rewrite a story's ending — if they can trust each other long enough to reach it. The twisty second book in the series.

• morally grey
• enemies to lovers

Lyra Belacqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jordan College, her wolf-like daemon always by her side. But when her formidable uncle Lord Asriel arrives with a desperate mission, Lyra is drawn into a struggle that spans worlds — against the Gobblers who steal children and the Magisterium's attempt to bind every soul through their alethiometers.

• coming of age
• betrayal
• quest

The conclusion of Rebecca Ross's Letters of Enchantment duology. Two weeks after Iris Winnow comes home wounded from the front, the war between the gods Enva and Dacre grinds on and Roman is missing behind enemy lines with no memory of his past — or of her. When a letter slides under his wardrobe door, he begins writing to a stranger who feels inexplicably familiar. A slow-burn epistolary romantasy finale about devotion tested by distance, and what each of them will sacrifice to end a war.

• epistolary
• sacrifice
• betrayal
• multiple povs

Evangeline Fox came to the Magnificent North chasing a happy ending, and from the outside it looks as if she found one: a handsome prince, a legendary castle, a fairy-tale life. But she has no memory of what that ending truly cost her, and the people closest to her are determined to keep it that way. As old enemies close in and buried truths refuse to stay buried, Evangeline is caught between two villains, each certain he knows what is best for her — and only one of whom she may be able to trust. With hearts, crowns, and lives on the line, the story that began with a single broken heart races toward its final, dangerous reckoning. The conclusion to the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy, A Curse for True Love brings Evangeline and Jacks's story to a heady, romantic close in the world of Caraval.

• morally grey
• forbidden love