Want to bring a little magic to your shelves? Of course you do! The best fantasy books of April 2024 are here to enchant, intrigue, and carry us away to alternate realities.
Whether you prefer your fantasy books tinged with light academia, horror, or good old-fashioned epic battles, the lineup for April 2024 fantasy books has it all and then some. Pick up new books from beloved authors like Leigh Bardugo, Hannah Whitten, and Mark Lawrence. Or, try something new, with debuts from Rose Sutherland, Molly X. Chang, and John Wiswell.
Get ready for your next magical reading journey! Check out all our picks for the best fantasy books of April 2024 right now.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Release date: April 2
Read it if: You love monster stories told from the monster’s POV. An injured shapeshifter is nursed back to health by an unwitting human who has secrets of her own.
Publisher’s synopsis: Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals.
However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.
Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?
Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.
And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez
Release date: April 2
Read it if: You like your fantasy stories with a literary-fiction twist. When a celebrated author literally buries her unfinished stories, they come to life to haunt her.
Publisher’s synopsis: Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories— literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.
Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.
The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Jinn Daughter by Rania Hanna
Release date: April 2
Read it if: You love lyrical writing, Middle Eastern mythology, and tales of mothers and daughters. A jinn woman fights against powerful forces in hopes of saving her daughter from a terrifying fate.
Publisher’s synopsis: Nadine is a jinn tasked with one job: telling the stories of the dead. She rises every morning to gather pomegranate seeds—the souls of the dead—that have fallen during the night. With her daughter Layala at her side, she eats the seeds and tells their stories. Only then can the departed pass through the final gate of death.
But when the seeds stop falling, Nadine knows something is terribly wrong. All her worst fears are confirmed when she is visited by Kamuna, Death herself and ruler of the underworld, who reveals her desire for someone to replace her: it is Layala she wants.
Nadine will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe, but Kamuna has little patience and a ruthless drive to get what she has come for. Layala’s fate, meanwhile, hangs in the balance.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Play of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell
Release date: April 2
Read it if: You’re a sucker for anything swashbuckling. A man fleeing a duel stumbles into an acting company, only to stumble into a much bigger threat.
Publisher’s synopsis: Damelas Shademantaigne picked a poor night to flee a judicial duel.
He has precious little hope of escaping the wrath of Vixen, the most feared duelist in the entire city, until he stumbles through the stage doors of the magnificent Operato Belleza and tricks his way into the company of actors. An archaic law provides temporary respite from his troubles–until one night a ghostly voice in his head causes Damelas to fumble his lines, inadvertently blurting out the dreadful truth: the city’s most legendary hero may actually be a traitor and a brutal murderer.
With only the help of his boisterous and lusty friend Bereto, a beautiful assassin whose target may well be Damelas himself, and a company of misfit actor who’d just as soon see him dead, this failed son of two Greatcoats must somehow find the courage within himself to dig up long-buried truths before a ruthless band of bravos known as the Iron Orchids comes for his head.
Oh, and there’s the that matter of the Vixen waiting to duel him…
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Promise of Peridot by Kate Golden
Release date: April 9
Read it if: You’re craving slow-burn romance set in a world of warring kingdoms and magic. After a battle, a young woman sets out on a quest to find the sword that could kill a fae king — while dealing with complicated feelings surrounding the man who betrayed her.
Publisher’s synopsis: Arwen Valondale is sailing for the mysterious Kingdom of Citrine after the battle of Siren’s Bay. Still reeling from the loss of her mother and the shock of her newfound powers, Arwen directs all of her pain and rage toward the man who betrayed her: King Kane Ravenwood.
But Kane’s presence is unavoidable as he leads Arwen and her friends on an expedition to recover the Blade of the Sun—a legendary weapon with the power to kill tyrannical Fae King Lazarus. Their uneasy truce proves difficult to maintain, as Arwen battles her unresolved feelings, and Kane is willing to become darkness itself to protect her.
Arwen knows failure to fulfill the prophecy will seal both her own fate as well as the fates of those she loves most. But as Arwen faces creatures, foes, and magic beyond her wildest imaginings, her resolve is tested in ways she never could have foreseen.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Release date: April 9
Read it if: You love the idea of Bardugo’s signature style set in a magical version of Inquisition-era Europe. A servant with magic is pressed into service by the elite in a war against England, all while concealing her own heritage to avoid a terrible fate.
Publisher’s synopsis: In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family’s social position.
What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen―and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor.
Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men, and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition’s wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive―even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland
Release date: April 9
Read it if: You’re a fan of Gothic-tinged fantasy and creepy folktales. A woman uncovers her neighbors’ dark secrets in this Selkie Wife retelling.
Publisher’s synopsis: When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, drenched to the bone in the bitter cold and able to speak barely a word of English.
Although Jean is the only midwife for miles around, she’s at a loss for who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume that she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to multiply. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?
Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean that she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Hemlock Queen by Hannah Whitten
Release date: April 9
Read it if: You’ve been anticipating the second installment of this series about poisons, saints, and kings. The corrupt former king is dead, but the kingdom could be just as dangerous for the new king, his necromancer-turned-advisor, and a warrior-monk.
Publisher’s synopsis: The corrupt king August is dead. Prince Bastian has seized the throne and raised Lore—a necromancer and former smuggler—to his right-hand side. Together they plan to cut out the rot from the heart of the royal court and help the people of Dellaire. But not everyone is happy with the changes. The nobles are sowing dissent, the Kirythean Empire is beating down their door, and Lore’s old allies are pulling away. Even Prince Bastian has changed. No longer the hopeful, rakish, charismatic man Lore knows and loves, instead, he’s become reckless, domineering, and cold.
And something has been whispering in her ear. A voice, dark and haunting, that’s telling her there’s more to the story than she knows and more to her power than she can even imagine. A truth buried deep that could change everything.
With Bastian’s coronation fast approaching and enemies whispering on all sides, Lore must figure out how to protect herself, her prince, and her country before they all come crumbling down and whatever dark power has been creeping through the catacombs is unleashed.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence
Release date: April 9
Read it if: You love reading stories where books are literally magic. Two young people must forge their destinies in a twisted world of a magical library, powerful words, and a secret war.
Publisher’s synopsis: The Library spans worlds and times. It touches and joins distant places. It is memory and future. And amid its vastness Evar Eventari both found and lost, Livira Page.
Evar has been forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover the book she wrote—one which is the only true threat to the library’s existence—if she’s to return to her life.
While Evar’s journey leads him outside into a world he’s never seen, Livira’s path will take her deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.
The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang
Release date: April 16
Read it if: You enjoy stories that question whether characters really can be redeemed or not. A young woman from a conquered land is offered a deal by the invaders’ prince — but can she trust his charms?
Publisher’s synopsis: Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
Release date: April 23
Read it if: You love light academia and under-the-sea magic. After the two scholars vanish, their siblings read their correspondence to try to find out what happened.
Publisher’s synopsis: A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.
Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.
A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches, and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Saint-Seducing Gold by Brittany N. Williams
Release date: April 23
Read it if: You’re intrigued by the combination of metal magic, Orisha and fae mythology, and Shakespearean England. A girl with a gift for enchanting metal must re-forge a deal between the Fae and the humans, all before a deadly war destroys them all.
Publisher’s synopsis: There’s danger in the court of James I. Magical metal worker Joan Sands must reforge the Pact between humanity and the Fae to stop the looming war. As violence erupts across London and the murderous spymaster Robert Cecil closes in, the Fae queen Titanea coerces Joan into joining the royal court while holding her godfather prisoner in the infamous Tower of London. Now Joan will have to survive deadly machinations both magical and mortal all while balancing the magnetic pull of her two loves—Rose and Nick—before the world as she knows it is destroyed forever.
Get it on Amazon or support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org.
Awesome list and article!