Every reader knows that books are magic, but fantasy readers, perhaps, know that more than most. The best fantasy books of February 2024 are here to transport us all to strange new worlds — and we can’t wait.
We may be only two months into the year, but there are already plenty of incredible books to love. These fantasy books run the gamut. You’ll find YA to gritty adult novels; fae to vampires to ghosts; fantasy crossed with romance novels; and more. The fantasy genre just keeps expanding, and we just keep adding to our TBR!
Get your reading off to a great start this month! Check out our picks for the best fantasy books of February 2024 now.
A Vicious Game by Melissa Blair
Release date: Feb. 6
Read it if: You love fae fantasy and stories of healing from trauma and grief. In this third installment, a former assassin must pick up the pieces after the battle is through.
Publisher’s synopsis: A new king is on the throne and the rebellion lies in ruins. Keera spends her days drinking and her nights avoiding the strange dreams that have haunted her since she returned from the capital.
Keera’s family in Myrelinth won’t let her go without a fight. With new intelligence about the magical seals left behind by Keera’s ancient kin, the Light Fae, she rallies to face her demons and unleash the formidable powers she inherited from her people. But a shocking truth is hiding in plain sight, one with the power to unravel the entire rebellion…
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Cursed Rose by Leslie Vedder
Release date: Feb. 6
Read it if: Fractured fairytales are your kind of fantasy story. This YA trilogy ends as a crew must take on a foe whose greatest power is keeping them apart.
Publisher’s synopsis: Not all curses should be broken. Not all fairytales end happily ever after.
Fi is a prisoner. Briar, a monster. Shane’s a warrior. And Red is a traitor. What was once a formidable group of four fighting to reawaken the kingdom is now ruptured, torn apart by the wicked Spindle Witch.
Confined to a tower with the monstrous Briar Rose, Fi is caught in the Spindle Witch’s ever-tightening web. The Spindle Witch is on the verge of finding the Siphoning Spells and crushing Andar—with Fi’s help, no less. Fi’s only hope lies in decoding the ancient riddle of the Rose Witches before she loses Briar forever.
Shane is desperate to save Andar—and her partner. She’s on the hunt for a weapon left by the mysterious Lord of the Butterflies, which holds the key to the Spindle Witch’s demise. Her love for Red has only fortified. But Red’s betrayal puts her in danger from a new enemy—the Spindle Witch’s executioner, the Wraith, a witch as powerful as he is cruel.
The future of Andar lies in the secrets of its past. Fi and Shane must take on the greatest lost ruin of them all—the Tomb of Queen Aurora.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
Release date: Feb. 13
Read it if: You feel like books are literal magic, or you knocked on your closet door to try to find Narnia. You’ll feel connected as a bookstore employee finds a powerful tome and is targeted by shadowy figures.
Publisher’s synopsis: In New York City, bookseller Cassie Andrews is living an unassuming life when she is given a gift by a favorite customer. It’s a book – an unusual book, full of strange writing and mysterious drawings. And at the very front there is a handwritten message to Cassie, telling her that this is the Book of Doors, and that any door is every door.
The Book of Doors is a special book that bestows an extraordinary powers on whoever possesses it. And soon, Cassie and her best friend Izzy are exploring all that the Book of Doors can do, swept away from their quiet lives by the possibilities of traveling to anywhere they want.
But the Book of Doors is not the only magical book in the world. There are other books that can do wondrous and dreadful things when wielded by dangerous and ruthless individuals. Individuals who crave what Cassie now possesses.
Suddenly Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is, it seems, Drummond Fox. He is a man fleeing his own demons. A man with his own secret library of magical books that he has hidden away in the shadows for safekeeping. Because there is a nameless evil out there that is hunting them all…
Because some doors should never be opened.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear by Robin Wasley
Release date: Feb. 13
Read it if: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a formative influence on your taste in pop culture. If you crossed Buffy‘s Hellmouth with The Walking Dead, you’d have this quasi-apocalyptic YA fantasy.
Publisher’s synopsis: High school is hard enough to survive without an apocalypse to navigate.
Sid Spencer has always been the most normal girl in her abnormal hometown, a tourist trap built over one of the fault lines that seal magic away from the world. Meanwhile, all Sid has to deal with is hair-ruining humidity, painful awkwardness, being one of four Asians in town, and her friends dumping her when they start dating each other—just days after one of the most humiliating romantic rejections faced by anyone, ever, in all of history.
Then someone kills one of the Guardians who protect the seal. The earth rips open and unleashes the magic trapped inside. Monsters crawl from the ground, no one can enter or leave. And the man behind it all is roaming the streets with a gang of violent vigilantes. Suddenly, Sid’s life becomes a lot less ordinary. When she finds out her missing brother is involved, she joins the remaining Guardians, desperate to find him and close the fault line for good.
Fighting through hordes of living corpses and uncontrollable growths of forest, Sid and a ragtag crew of would-be heroes are the only thing standing between their town and the end of the world as they know it. Between magic, murderers, and burgeoning crushes, Sid must survive being a perfectly normal girl caught in a perfectly abnormal apocalypse.
Only—how can someone so ordinary make it in such an extraordinary world?
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Flame in the North by Lilith Saintcrow
Release date: Feb. 13
Read it if: Epic fantasy and Norse mythology are your jam. A witch plus a shieldmaiden plus a haunted land equals an intriguing new novel.
Publisher’s synopsis: The Black Land is spent myth. Centuries have passed since the Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, every village still lights a ritual fire to banish the dark.
That is Solveig’s duty. Favored by the gods with powerful magic, Sol calls forth flame to keep her home safe. But when her brother accidentally kills a northern lord’s son, she is sent away as weregild—part hostage, part guest—for a year and a day.
The further north Sol travels, the clearer it becomes the Black Land is no myth. The forests teem with foul beasts. Her travel companions are not what they seem, and their plans for her and her magic are shrouded in secrecy.
With only her loyal shieldmaid and her own wits to reply upon, Sol must master power beyond her imagination to wrest control of her fate. For the Black Land’s army stirs, ready to cover the world in darkness—unless Sol can find the courage to stop it.
They thought the old ways were dead. But now, the Enemy awakens…
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
Release date: Feb. 13
Read it if: Dark academia and vampire lore speak to you. Dark obsessions, academic rivalries, and sinister magic collide at an isolated school in this Gothic-tinged fantasy.
Publisher’s synopsis: Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.
On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.
But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Release date: Feb. 13
Read it if: You’re intrigued by the idea of a fantasy book entwined with real history. After returning from World War I, a field nurse tries to discover what happened to her brother. The truth, however, is stranger than she ever could have thought.
Publisher’s synopsis: January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, Laura receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense.
Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital, where she soon hears whispers about haunted trenches and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?
November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
As shells rain down on Flanders and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
Release date: Feb. 20
Read it if: You’re still bitter that the Six of Crows adaptation got cancelled. In this YA fantasy, an elegant tearoom doubles as a front for illicit vampire dealings, with a street-smart young criminal overseeing all.
On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by night, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it―she can’t do the job alone.
Calling on some of the city’s most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the sinister, glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. Dark, action-packed, and swoonworthy, this is Hafsah Faizal better than ever.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
Release date: Feb. 27
Read it if: Undersea magic — and stunning cover art — is especially interesting to you. In one gleaming port city, humans and “fathomfolk” live very different kinds of lives, but a rebellion brews to overthrow the social segregation.
Publisher’s synopsis: Welcome to Tiankawi – shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that’s how it first appears. But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on top: peering down from shining towers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk – sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas – who live in the polluted waters below.
For half-siren Mira, promotion to captain of the border guard means an opportunity to help her downtrodden people. But if earning the trust and respect of her human colleagues wasn’t hard enough, everything Mira has worked towards is put in jeopardy when Nami, a know-it-all water dragon and fathomfolk princess – is exiled to the city, under Mira’s watch. When extremists sabotage a city festival, violence erupts, as does the clampdown on fathomfolk rights. Both Nami and Mira must decide if the cost of change is worth paying, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
Release date: Feb. 27
Read it if: You’ve loved Aveyard’s Realm Breaker series from the start, or you love epic fantasy about the fate of the world.
Change your fate—or kneel to it.
The Companions are scattered and hopeless, torn from each other. After Corayne barely escapes with her life, she must forge on alone, leaving her blade broken and her allies behind her. Her only consolation: Corayne now has Taristan’s sword, the only Spindleblade left in existence. Without it, he can’t rip open any more Spindles. Without it, he can’t end the world.
But Taristan and Queen Erida will not be defeated so easily. Both will burn the world to bring down Corayne—and bring forth their demon god, What Waits, ready to claim the realm of Allward for his own.
In a final clash between kingdoms and gods, all must rise to fight—or be destroyed.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
Release date: Feb. 27
Read it if: You’ve spent time pondering what “destiny” means, or you’re searching for a new Norse-tinged fantasy series to obsess over.
Publisher’s synopsis: Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.
Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret. She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. And it’s been foretold that such magic will unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate.
Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she has sworn to protect.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
