#cosy fantasy books

[theliterarylondonlife]

Cosy Fantasy Books for a Cottagecore Reading Aesthetic

Cosy Fantasy Books for a Cottagecore Reading Aesthetic

Cosy fantasy books are some of my favourite reads. The best cosy fantasy books are all on this ultimate list. This list of new and most popular cosy fantasy books is better than baked bread! If you are looking for some popular must-read cosy fantasy books with cottagecore vibes, I have you covered. So get your reading nook read and curl up with one of these cosy fantasy books. I recommend you…

[annafromuni]

A Fun Little Story With Witches and Baking

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher is such a cute, easy and cosy autumnal read perfect for young readers and old. Mona is a young witch whose magic is all about bread, her familiar is a sourdough starter that cannot die and she magics gingerbread men to dance (and serve as guardians to protect her). What is there to hate? It’s a simple story with simple plot progression and…

[thehobbitchronicles]

The Spiderwick Chronicles

[crowsfiles]

— legends & lattes by @travisbaldree

[hiddenbookcasepodcast]

Happy International Asexuality Day from us at The Hidden Bookcase. Here are some book recommendations we love featuring ace representation to celebrate!

[aroaessidhe]

Hi. Do you know of any aro, ace, or aroace fantasy books that take place in a small town?

Hello! Not sure if I know of anything that's perfectly what I assume you're looking for, but here's what comes to mind:

high fantasy set in a small town/village (though generally involves traveling to other places)

The Dragon of Ynys - aroace MC

From The Dark We Came - demi MC

The Story of the Hundred Promises - aro major characters & themes

fantasy elements, small town in our world

Every Bird A Prince - aro MC (middle grade)

Ravenfall - aroace MC (middle grade, also only very lightly mentioned)

Earthbound Hearts - ace MC (kinda fabulism, not Super fantasy)

paranormal/horror set in a small town in our world

Sawkill Girls - one of the MCs is ace

Funeral Girl - aro-coded ace MC

Now Entering Addamsville - ace MC

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester - acespec MC, aroace SC

The Crows - aroacespec major character (completely different vibe from the above pls check CWs lol)

there's also definitely more fantasy small town books with aspec side characters (eg The Lost Coast, The Heartbreak Bakery, Summer of Salt) but not MCs...

[ekmosley]

“Is my dream only a dream? Or are there others like me?”

- The Last Stardog by E.K Mosley

[jitterbugbear]

sigh i hate that it's almost a red flag when fantasy book marketing mentions howl's moving castle because they never get it right. they don't have even half the wit or the heart hmc has and they're never FUNNY!! hmc is a funny book!

[inlovewithhearts]

currently reading

[inthegoodbooks]

Recent book purchases:

This week, I have treated myself to several new books. In celebration of Independent Bookshops Week, I decided to break my book-buying ban and get my hands on some titles I’ve been after for ages.

The Priory of the Orange Tree - ok, I have to admit that I have tried to read this before. I was in a terrible mood and didn’t even finish it. Then, like an idiot, I sold it instead of giving it another go. With all of the reviews mentioning it as a sapphic fantasy fave, I know I need to give it another shot and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

In the Lives of Puppets - Having just finished (and loved) The House in the Cerulean Sea, I just had to get my hands on this fairly recent title from TJ Klune. I have no doubt that this will also give me all the cosy feels I need and help to split up my reading of the very lengthy list of books by Robin Hobb that I plan to get through in the coming year…

Godkiller - I have seen nothing but amazing reviews for this debut fantasy read and I can’t wait to try it out. I know it is yet another series but I just can’t help it…

As for the others, they have all either been recommended to me by other people, YouTube channels or just looked lovely when I picked them up. Can’t wait to read them all soon.

[bookshelvesandtealeaves]

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Enemies to Booksellers by Laura Catherine

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[instagram]

I loved this book so much!!! This is what cosy fantasy dreams are made of.

Any time I read a book like this, I wish I could just transport myself inside it and live this life with these characters. I get so emotionally invested in every part of them and the life they’ve built themselves.

I loved Echo and Morgan. Their relationship was complicated at times, and yet so absurdly simple in their love for one another. Everything they had to face, they faced together. I loved their growth both together and separately over the course of this book as they learned to navigate the new life they’d carved together.

I adored every side character in this book, honestly. Igni, Fae, Nigel, Kalli and Kit have my whole dang heart and all I want is to be a part of this found family. Even most of the barely-there characters were loveable and warm.

The plot was also engaging. Low enough stakes to remain cosy throughout but high enough stakes to keep me absolutely hooked. I could not put this one down.

Thanks so much to the author for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this one. I can’t recommend it enough.

[briefearthquakecoffee]

Waiting for the third book in the emily wilde- series

Can anyone please recommend what to read while waiting? Anything that feels like emily wilde, with a sweet but not too much romance, protagonists older than YA, in a fantasy setting.

I have already read most T.Kingfisher books, Howls moving castle and the natural history of dragons- but those might be worth a try for you if you stumbled across this post :)

[realitys-abore]

💌 Book Mail! 💌

I’m about to dive so much deeper into my cosy fantasy era 😅

Isn’t it pretty? There’s so many details on the cover art, it just screams cottagecore and if you look super close there’s a winged floof too!

Not to mention:

🍄 Cosy vibes

🍄 Stolen spellbooks

🍄 A sentient spider plant

🍄 Illegal spell-selling market

🍄 Sweet romance

Did I mention our mc Kiela is also a librarian? Or, former librarian at least 😅

Unfortunately for her, she has to flee that life when the Great Library protecting the city’s magic burns as a revolution sweeps in! Luckily enough, however, she DOES manage to pinch as many spellbooks as she can carry first and after witnessing how the empire has sapped the magic from the land, she opts to open up her own spellshop to make things right!

BUT, it’s not as easy as it sounds especially when the punishment for sharing magic with commoners is death!

I’m kind of envisioning this having similar mid-stakes to Treason Without Tea, but I’m already highly intrigued by the world! Not to mention the sentient spider plant?!

[thehobbitchronicles]

The Spiderwick Chronicles

[noahhawthorneauthor]

According to Goodreads, if you like these then you might like ...

Arlo Rook has decided it’s time to move out of Garren Castle, home for orphans of all races, magical or not, at 100 years old.

It’s not the first time he’s left home, but a setback landed the Hedge Witch in the hospital a year ago, and subsequently back to square one. Now he's ready to strike out on his own, despite his friend’s worries he's not ready.

Thatch Phantom is an immortal, the last of his kind and perpetually bored. When he’s not closing interdimensional rifts and corralling trouble in the universe, he’s visiting his favorite city of all, Levena. No one remembers him, but he's made an everlasting impact on the city nonetheless.

Long ago, he set up an anonymous scavenger hunt for the starving village, providing them with a year’s worth of supplies. He upped the ante each year, providing less practical things, as the village had become a city and was wealthy beyond belief. Festivals are thrown in his honor to this day, or a version of him, that is.

Thatch has decided to throw a wild card into this year’s Game. Whoever discovers his true identity will win one wish of their choice, no restrictions. Aside from the obvious, such as no falling in love, murder or resurrection.

Arlo crashes into the mess of copper curls and bright eyes, who throws apothecary goods and his life into a chaotic mess. It certainly wasn’t the first they met, but Arlo doesn’t remember him. Thatch, however, never forgot the Witch with a familiar soulmark on his face.

What follows is a hilarious and wholesome series of events that teases the immortal with the one thing he wants most.

Someone to call home.

📚🏳️‍🌈🏞️🦉

Phantom and Rook will be on sale for the entirety of Pride Month, beginning on June 1st! The ebooks will be available everywhere for $0.99, and the audiobooks for $9.99 on Chirp, Spotify, Apple, and Barnes and Noble.

[lola-theshowgrl]

Book Review: “The House In The Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune

5/5

*

I feel like this book has been on my TBR pile for quite some time now, and I've heard a lot of good things about the author, TJ Klune. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it, but I really wish I'd picked it up much quicker than I have done. It was one of the softest, most comforting stories I've read in a while now - exactly what I needed, and honestly, the sort of book I've been longing for just lately.

The characters are vibrant and loveable, the setting is interesting and well thought out, and the writing was like sinking into a comfortable armchair after a long day. It was cosy and funny in turns, while dealing with some very real issues in a sensitive and clever manner.

Linus Baker, the main character, is someone you can't help but cheer for. He leads an incredibly lonely and boring life at the beginning of the book, working in a job where he's treated poorly by his superiors and colleagues alike, for a governing body that you can immediately tell isn't the most ethical. He stays, in part, because it's what he knows, but also because he believes the work he's doing is important and helpful. There's no point in the story where as a reader I felt his heart wasn't always in the right place, even if sometimes I wanted to reach through the pages and give him a gentle shake.

The characters around him seem to be able to tell this about him instinctually, even though they have cause to be very wary, and I really appreciated the pace the author developed the trust and friendships between Linus and the other occupants of Marsyas Island, especially the children. The way he grows to care for them, to let down his protective barriers, and the way they all value him in turn really speaks to that place in my heart that will always be in love with the "found family" trope.

The relationship between Linus and Arthur was particularly interesting to me, not only because I love a good romance, but also because of how naturally they seemed to fall together. There were points early on where I thought Arthur somehow knew Linus ahead of time, though that never came to anything, and I loved the way they seemed to genuinely just enjoy each other's company. You don't see that as much in romances, sadly, but I'm a big fan of couples who actually like each other as people, and as soon as Linus and Arthur began to bicker about philosophy, I knew I was going down with this ship.

I've said this in other reviews, but it's easy in queer lit to end up dealing with very heavy subject matter, and I was happy to see no big fuss was made about anyone's sexuality. In fact, I don't believe it was ever brought up negatively at all by any of the characters, or even questioned, come to that. It’s the sort of thing I wish I could have seen more of as a teenager, instead of it always being treated as the most tragic thing in the world to be gay.

That said, there were some heavy themes in the story, but as I mentioned above, all of it was handled very elegantly and with a great deal of care. There is an emphasis on being different from the "norm" and the ensuing persecution and prejudice this brings, but it was written in a way that I think a lot of younger readers would be able to see and understand the point without it ever being heavy-handed. Another point was that the adult characters always protected the children to the best of their abilities, keeping the overall tone of the book fairly safe despite the subject matter, and I think that's something that's incredibly important.

I loved this book. I had a spare audiobook credit, and spent it immediately on the sequel because I just couldn't wait. I'm very excited to get stuck in! If you're looking for cosy, happy, urban fantasy with fairly low stakes, then this is for you.