Fantasy Realism

One stormy Irish summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hairclips and jewelry, but soon it's clear that Rose has lost something much bigger, something she won't talk about, and Olive thinks her best friend is slipping away. Then seductive diary pages written by a girl named Laurel begin to appear all over town. And Olive meets three mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel, and her twin brother, Rowan, secretly squatting in an abandoned housing estate.

Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. "Look for us," they tell Pierce, "if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden's court."

A spellbinding work of literature, Latitudes of Longing follows the interconnected lives of characters searching for true intimacy. The novel sweeps across India, from an island, to a valley, a city, and a snow desert, to tell a love story of epic proportions. We follow a scientist who studies trees and a clairvoyant who speaks to them; a geologist working to end futile wars over a glacier; octogenarian lovers; a mother struggling to free her revolutionary son; a yeti who seeks human companionship; a turtle who transforms first into a boat and then a woman.

Amy's grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House - but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy's new power is, it also brings danger: someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper, Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts - at whatever cost.

James is living the life he always wanted. He has his own rustic cabin in the countryside, peace, quiet, and some lovely companions to share his joy with. But there is much left to do! James will need to expand his cabin to make it more comfortable for his—ahem—lady friends. Also, harvest is coming up for the redheaded farm girl, and she might need a hand or two around the farm.

By a riverbank in Africa, two lovers meet for the first time. They make a promise to meet again the next day, same time, same place, but only one of them shows up. This sounds like the beginning of a love story, but it's more than that, for this breath-taking tale takes the listener into the heart of a vibrant world, a complex and intriguing civilization of warriors and kings, philosophers and artists, parents and lovers. A world and culture which is about to end, for glimpsed on the horizon, seen but unsuspected, beautiful ships with white sails are waiting.

Late at night our friend wanders a little and ponders quite a lot on a long walk along a river looking for a reason to keep on living. He meets up with a troll and a few other all-night ghouls as he drifts along, searching for purpose. They all find it amazing our friend can negotiate his way through the day posing as a teacher.

When their Ukrainian grandmother is lost on a trans-Atlantic Flight, two sisters are swept into a quest across eastern Europe to find the woman who had always told more tales than truths. From Poland to Slovakia to Hungary and beyond, Larissa and Ira navigate the steps of Ukrainian folk dance, the cliff-side paths of Slovak Paradise National Park, and the stark realities of war, folktales, and feminism, all for the sake of chasing who they're starting to believe is a true Baba Yaga. Understanding their family's roots has never been more clear.

Vira, Ronak, Kaleb, and Riya may be siblings, but they've never been close or even liked each other that much. Torn apart by the different paths their lives have taken, only one thing can bring them back together: the search for the Ivory Key, a thing of legend that will lead the way to a new source of magic. Magic is Ashoka's biggest export and the only thing standing between them and war with the neighboring kingdoms—as long as their enemies don't find out that the magic mines are nearly depleted.

A ship. A garden. A library. A key. In Kaleidoscope, the incomparable Brian Selznick presents the story of two people bound to each other through time and space, memory and dreams. At the center of their relationship is a mystery about the nature of grief and love which will look different to each listener. Kaleidoscope is a feat of storytelling that illuminates how even the wildest tales can help us in the hardest times.

Fable Prescott believes two lies. The first, that she was chosen at random for the summer study abroad program at her university. And the second, that she came to the wind-whipped Isle of Skye to research her family's mysterious ancestry. She never expected to find herself embroiled in a cold case that's kept a tiny seaside village on edge for years. When another woman vanishes, Fable begins to wonder if there is more to the dark legends that cling to the island; and if her brooding, devastatingly handsome new neighbor is the only one that holds the key to her family's tragic past.

Salem, Massachusetts. Henry Trank usually has his feet firmly on the ground. But the dedicated nurse’s rational world upends when he wakes from a terrifying dream to find pine needles in his hair. And after he films himself sleeping, he’s shocked to see himself reliving the final brutal moments of a murdered woman. Finding it hard to make sense of what he’s just witnessed, he turns to the charming witch he’s been dying to date. But his skepticism shatters when a web of deadly magic and immortal menace leads him down a road that could end in death.

Sam Green thinks her life is pretty normal. Almost. She does have a strange affinity for animals, weird dreams, and a mysterious staff in her closet. But Sam’s calm life is shattered when a dragon poisons her father and the mother of her best friend Jake. She is further shocked when a shapeshifting giant cat and powerful faerie ask her to fulfill a prophecy.

Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and out of options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon’s Grande Armée. As a naturalist, her mysterious ability to heal any wound with herbal mixtures invites awe amongst the soldiers…and suspicion.

Aila Quinn's mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery. Vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila's reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother, Miles, are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town with mysteries of its own. In Sterling, the experiences that weave life together - scents of flowers and food, reflections from mirrors and lakes, even the ability to dream - vanish every seven years. No one knows what causes these Disappearances or what will slip away next.

When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season....

Warning: Contains intense action, adult situations, threesomes, and untraditional relationships. After slaying a leviathan of the deep, and gaining a magic he barely understands, an ordinary fisherman finds himself entangled in a magical game of the gods with the fate of his planet as the prize. Dean becomes Oakley's champion, competing in the Minotaur's Maze. He travels through a portal to Mixonia, a city of wonders, filled with magic and monster girls of all sorts.

Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when Faye was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that’s why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her — and always will be, whatever happens. Then one day, Faye gets her heart’s desire when she’s whisked back into the past and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self.

In River City, where magic used to thrive and is now fading, the witches who once ruled the city along with their powerful King have become all but obsolete. The city's crumbling government is now controlled primarily by the new university and teaching hospital, which has grown to take over half of the city. Moving between the decaying Old City and the ruthless New, four young queer people struggle with the daily hazards of life—work, school, dodging cops—not realizing that they have been selected to play in an age-old drama that revives the flow of magic through their world.

Life has gone according to plan for Anna—she stays in the background, letting her sister, Emily, shine in the spotlight. But on Emily’s wedding night, Anna learns that her sister is moving away, abandoning her—and all their shared dreams. Devastated, Anna leaves the reception in the middle of a raging storm, taking shelter in a hotel she’s never seen before: the Houdini. The Houdini is a hotel unlike any other, with sumptuous velvet couches, marble tiled floors, secret restaurants, winding passageways, and an undercurrent of magic in the air.