 Hello! I had two fantasy books. So if you don't know, if you're new here, welcome if you're new here, my two most favorite genres are like mystery, thriller and fantasy. Standing in front of the fantasy shelf today. And I've done one of these videos for murder mysteries because I think a lot of people maybe are just getting into murder mysteries. I want to try them out. But I thought it'd be fun to do this for fantasy as well. Fantasy is probably the genre that got me back into reading a couple of years ago. So I've definitely got a few recommendations for what I started out with. The same as with the other video I did, this video is going to take you on a journey. We're going to go on a journey! Where you can kind of view this in two ways. You can kind of view each section that we're going to go through as different places you could start. So whichever one appeals to you most, maybe start with one of the books from there. Or view it as a journey that you can go on. I will say there's a very big mix of adult and YA in here. I tend to read both. I really like both. So we're kind of just going to be flitting back and forth between the two. And I will also say, I'm going to promise this and no one can get mad at me, there's not a ton of men on this list. There's a few. There's a few. But there's not a ton of men. And you're not going to see anywhere at the time. There's no Brandon Sanderson on here. So wherever that's the kind of fantasy you're looking for, you have come to the wrong place. You've stumbled across this. But I would still encourage you to watch it because you could discover some great books. So I'm just prefacing this but I don't want any comments like, this isn't real fantasy. There's no way of time. Like calm down. Calm down. So the first place we're going to start is high fantasy. Like your typical amazing expansive high fantasy that you think of when you think of fantasy. This is where I started personally. When you think you're going to read fantasy, this is the kind of fantasy you think you're going to read. Now we're going to get in at the end into some more advanced suggestions. These are the high fantasies that I would really recommend you start with. And they're all kind of the fantasy that I started with. They're some of the first fantasy series I ever read. So my first recommendation is these beauties. These special editions I have are of one of my favorite series in the world. This is the Bear, this is the first one, Bear the Nightingale trilogy by Katherine Arden. So this is probably the first fantasy series I read when I was getting back into reading. I vividly remember going to, oh my god, going to purchase the final one, not this copy but the Wincher of the Witch. And I also bought The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware, which was my first thriller. I think that was my first thriller I ever read. I remember, so I was in my local high street. Whereas if you've ever been in the British high street, you meet some characters. And I was leaving the waterstones and a guy was walking behind me, this older guy. Not old but I would say like 40s, 50s. And he saw The Turn of the Key, he went, oh, The Turn of the Key. I wonder if there's something to do with pirates. And you know what? I, what was that? Okay, anyways, I love this series. So this is a series following a young girl named Vassia. We follow her from birth into kind of like young womanhood in the Winter of the Witch. And it's a story of her discovering her powers. It's set in old Russia. It's wintery. It's full of old magic, of witches, of old Russian folklore. This is a great introduction to fantasy, I believe. I can understand, actually, more as time goes on and I read more advanced fantasy. Why people who read a lot of fantasy, this might not be your favourite, because it is quite simple. The magic in this, particularly like in the first one, is very constrained. Vassia can only really like speak to household spirits in this. So a big part of Russian folklore is household spirits, like in the house or in the water or in the forest. And she can like speak to them and communicate with them and she understands the importance of them to like the ecosystem, I guess, of the village. But it's quite simple magic compared to some other books. And quite simple world building, because in this first one, it's very constrained to her small village, the kind of discussions. Then I always say this one goes into her country, and then this one goes into her world. So there's a great expansiveness and growth throughout the series. But yeah, I can understand why the most like experienced readers of fantasy, it's not your favourite. But I think if you're a beginner, it's absolutely wonderful. Catherine Ardent writing is some of my favourite. If you like romance, there is a romance in this series, which I think is still one of the most interesting romantic relationships I've ever written a series. Not necessarily my favourite, although I do like it, but it's very interesting. It's a very interesting way of thinking about a romance. So if you typically like reading romance or maybe if you've only read like fantasy romances, I think this would be a good next step. I just have such a soft spot for this because it got me back into reading, it started moving fantasy, this is where I started. And I would absolutely recommend it as a first place. I just think the magic, oh the folklore. She's exquisite. I love her. I love her. And I love her even more. It's all wonderful. And the journey that Vassia goes on, like I feel like you feel lucky to have experienced it with her by the end. Then I have two YA recommendations. The first is the Scythe series by Neil Schusterman. This is set in a world where death has been eradicated, right? Humans can no longer die of illness or old age, but they still need to keep populations under control. So there's these things called what people called Scyths who have the power to kill. And they are the only people that can kill. I'm tempted to recommend this because I gave this one, I think like four stars. I gave Thunderhead, I don't know if you can even see it. Yeah, you can. The second one. I think I gave that five stars. And I gave the Toll the final one, I think two stars. But I think if you're a bit younger and only reading YA and you want to start in fantasy, it's a pretty like understandable world. The world building it in it is really great. I feel like the Toll goes off the rails slightly. Thunderhead is amazing. Like the way, I don't want to spoil anything, but the way the story develops in Thunderhead is so fun. And the Toll is like, sweet. The Toll ignoring what happens in Thunderhead. We are going to pretend we didn't hear that. My younger brother has read these and really liked them. And I just think they're a great book for younger audiences who are just getting into reading fantasy. I think they're a great way to do that. So if you're just reading YA at the moment, I'd really recommend this one. And then speaking of another book that definitely got me into reading and that I love, I have a lot of love for because of that is The Girls of Paper and Fire series by Natasha Nyang. Now, I love this. I still need to read the final one. I actually spoke about that in my last video about how I'm scared. In this we're following Lei, who is forced to be a paper girl, who are these girls who are forced to sleep with the king. So this book is tackling a lot of really difficult subjects, discussing sexual assault and trauma and the different ways that manifests I think is such an important book to read. I just loved it. I thought the world building in this is so incredible and it's very beautiful writing. I cannot wait to see what Natasha Nyang comes out with next after the series is done. I think she's an absolute powerhouse and fantasy writer. And I like that this book is YA, but it also covers difficult topics. And if I'm honest, I think it's the YA book I've read where the difficult topics are covered the best, I think. Okay, my next category is, why don't I do that? I'm so random. I am so random. I kind of just do that. It's more urban fantasy. So fantasy that is set in our world in kind of present day with like present day thingies going on, you know, the girlies are the girlies. There's magic, there's fantasy in some way. I think this is also a great place to start. If you don't want to start with high fantasy, you're gonna like generally ease yourself in. This is a good option. So a book I read recently, this is actually a geology, I have not read the second one yet, but I read this recently and I thought, wow, this is a great place to start with fantasy if you're a YA reader, is The Ravens by Cass Morgan and Danielle Page. This is a story of a sorority, a sorority where there are no witches, no witches. We're following two different perspectives. I believe the authors each wrote one. One is like an elder in the sorority and one is a girl who's just joining as they're discovering their magic, sisterhood, trying to save the sisterhood, trying to do things that help the sisterhood, that kind of situation. I was so shocked at how much I enjoyed this. I was not expecting going to some love it. I think I gave it like a 4 or 4.5 stars. I really, really enjoyed this. I think it's just such a solid fantasy. The magic is very easily understandable. You've got a few romances in there but they're not overpowering. I feel like the relationships in this are really good. The writing in it is really, really good. I've never read anything from Cass Morgan or Danielle Page. Cass Morgan wrote The A Hundred and Danielle Page wrote Dorothy Must Die. Is that what it's called? Dorothy Must, I don't know. So I'm not Dorothy. But I've never read from them before and I was just not expecting to enjoy this as much. I think it's just such a solid story that seems like so... Sometimes you read fantasy and you're like, oh I can pick holes in this. There's a few things that don't make sense. Like there's a few things that are a bit convenient. But this book, maybe because they were writing it together and they really had to drill everything down, it was like everything is so thought out and has its place and done in a simple way but it's like perfect in that way. Do you know what I mean? So I'd really, really recommend this. I think the magic is really fun and I'm definitely getting into witches. I'm liking witchy fantasy. I feel like that's a common theme for me but I feel like I'm getting into it even more. I'm like, give me all the witches. I love witches. Like that's so like hot to me. I love witches. It's exciting. And then my next recommendation I believed is Classes YA. But it's something I believe everyone can love and read and it's The Wayward Children's Series by Seanan McGuire. This is a series where kids go into these poor two worlds are perfect for them and then sometimes they come back and are stuck in our world again and it's going back and forth. We usually have a story on a magical world and then we have a story about the kids being stuck back in their place. I only have the three most recent ones. This one across the Greengrass trilogy can start with. I gave this five stars. I absolutely loved it. I would recommend starting with either the first book Every Heart or Doorway or this one. I really love them both. They're both kind of standouts in this series for me. This one we're following Reagan who loves horses and goes into a horsey world and I'm not a horse girl. But the relationship that's in this, the found family was so touching. Seanan McGuire just knows how to fucking write. She's got a very like special way of writing, a very like unique way of writing that I really admire and I could talk about this forever but I'll try and keep it short. Okay next I want to bring you three recommendations. If you typically read other genres and you're wondering what book would be best to get into next, firstly historical. If you typically read a lot of historical books, I recommend the One to Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow. Yes, it's more witches. Got a problem? Got a problem? It's more witches. This we're following three sisters. This is set in like the time of suffragists 1893. Sorry. This is such a beautiful book. I cannot wait to reread this. I already feel like I need to reread it and I only read it last year. It was my second favourite book of last year. It's a book I struggled to explain without spoiling anything but it's about these sisters who are witches, who have been separated for a little while, coming back together, their magic being intertwined with this suffragette movement. Is it the suffragette or the suffragists that they meet? I'm not sure. I can't remember but it's like delving into old magics and discovering their magic and it's just like a beautiful beautiful story. It feels so entrancing and I love fantasy with historical twists as you've seen with things like Baron Lightingale. I really really love that and I just loved the relationships in this and I really thought the historical setting benefited the story so so much. It wasn't just like sometimes you read them and you're like oh this could be set any other time but I really feel like it benefited so much and I found it very interesting looking at how I like taking real like pinpointed moments in history and seeing how magic could have intertwined with them. I find that very interesting. Then if you typically read a lot of mystery I would recommend Ninth House by Lee Bardugo. Now I do want to recommend for beginners like let's just chat about it quickly. Six of Crows and Cookie Kingdom. I love them. I think they're a great place to start. I did read the Shadow and Bone trilogy before I read them but I don't think you need to because Shadow and Bone ain't good. Well just as I thought trash. But I just didn't want to talk about them too much because I feel like they're so hyped up. I've got a whole reading vlog you can go and watch. I absolutely love them. I think they're a great place to start but I love Ninth House even more. I love it even more. In this we're following Alex and as she goes is it Yale? Yes. She goes to Yale. She's kind of given a special job at Yale. She's given a second chance with this special job to do with the secret societies at Yale and the magic they perform and I love this book so much. I want to reread it but I'm going to try it now that we know Hellbent the second one. Also I love the cover. I haven't spoken about this on my channel but I fucking love the cover. I know some people don't but I love it. I want to reread this closer to the time. I might even do a vlog maybe where I reread this and then read Hellbent. I'm so excited but yeah this definitely has mystery elements. There's a murder that happens on campus and it's all kind of intertwined so it's kind of like a murder mystery in a sense with Alex Stone trying to solve it with other stuff going on. This to me is the pinnacle of Leigh Bardugo. Six of Croson's Kingdom are great. They're great YA but this seeing Leigh Bardugo stretch her wings a bit with an adult fantasy is just absolutely incredible. This is actually the first Leigh Bardugo I ever read. Nothing is quite top-dead. I just thought her well-building, her writing, her imagination, incredible, incredible. I wish I could go back to how it felt reading this book for the first time. It was the kind of fantasy that just feels so consuming and that you just absolutely can't put down. And then if you typically read Contemporaries I'm looking to try out fantasy first time. I would recommend The Wicker King by Kate and Krem. I think this is actually shelved as mainly contemporary on Goodread and stuff and fantasy as its secondary genre. So in this following two friends, you can see the pages turn darker throughout the book and that's because one of the boys' mental state is kind of deteriorating. He believes he can see things and he can see this wild and the other friend is trying to help him through that. It's a very short book in the sense that all of the pages are just like one page chapters. So it reads so, so fast. You're constantly just flying through it. It's a little bit mixed media as well. There's like mixtapes and pictures and stuff in here and it's a slightly weird book. Like the relationship between these two boys is definitely something that I've never read from before. Their kind of co-dependency is very, very interesting but it's still like a contemporary with a little bit of fantasy and that would be my number one recommendation. I think Kate and Krem is a great, great writer. A quick recommendation I have to shout out is in my mystery video I recommended Cozy Mysteries and I have to recommend Cozy Fantasies. The only author I've read from like this is T.J. Klune with the House of the Cerulean Sea and Under the Wrist Spring Door. If you're looking for fantasy that doesn't have a lot of the harsh, hard elements that a lot of the other books we've recommended do have, this would be my number one recommendation. So in this, this one is about a orphanage that this man visits and he's trying to like, he's basically evaluating the orphanage but it's about him falling in love with all the characters in the orphanage and this is about a character who dies and he gets taken to the tea shop which is where everyone dies before they pass on. It's about coming to terms with grief and loss. That sounds like it should be like oh my god it's heavy but it's not. Everything in these books has a sense of hope and a sense of joy and a sense of pushing past that the hurt that I think is very beautiful and they're very definitely like comfort reads, very cozy. So yeah if you're looking for fantasy that isn't like stab stab, it's more hug hug, these would be my recommendations and then my final group of recommendations is recommendations for if you maybe want to push yourself a bit more. Whether you read a little bit of fantasy, now you're looking to get into the big gums, like you know the real meaty fantasy, the really meaty adult fantasy, these would be my recommendations. So my first recommendation is the Greenbone Saga. She's huge but she's so beautiful. The first one my dad has somewhere I just realised, I don't know where it is. He's currently reading Jade City which is the first one but Jade City I only gave 3.5 stars and this one Jade War II I gave 4.5, this one I gave 5 stars. This to me is like beyond a 5 star. The final book in this series Jade Legacy is one of the greatest like combinations of everything I've ever read. So basically this series we're following the cool family who live on the island of Kekon where people are green bones which means they get their power from this substance called Jade which is like a jewel so you can wear it in necklaces or whatever. It's like a mafia family retelling kind of book. There's other big families in Kekon who kind of try to control the Jade. The whole series expands, I don't even know how long, like 30 years? Maybe even more than that but the way you get to know all the different members of the family, the way that so many things happen, the way that little details that were planted in Jade City come to mean so much in this last book and determine so much of what happens is absolutely incredible. I cried at the end of both of these, the endings, oh Miss Fondely! It's hard, it's hard, it's hard for me out here. This was probably my first time finishing a real epic adult fantasy and I can really see the benefits in doing so because the detail, the way you get to know these characters, the world building, the way you're just so encapsulated and everything is absolutely incredible. My favourite characters are Anne and Wen. Be angry about it, talk to the wall, talk to the wall. If you disagree with me, talk to the wall. Anne and Wen, I love them so much and I just think this is a great, great fantasy series with so much detail. And then my final recommendation of only read one book from this author but I can already tell this is kind of going to be my next like big like fantasy adult fantasy project and that is Robin Hobb. I have only read the first one, Assassin's Apprentice, so Robin Hobb has like these different trilogies that all mesh together in the same story. So like all of her trilogies are this one big expansive world. In this we're following Fitz who is the illegitimate son of the kind of prince in waiting who then like abdicates because of Fitz's existence and Fitz is raised within the court kind of, he's kind of raised by like the stable master I guess and Fitz can also speak with animals, he can communicate animals, so my one big trigger warning for this series would be animal abuse because he can communicate with animals, that's kind of going to be part of the story. But towards like the latter half of this book, Fitz is kind of chosen by the king to be trained as an assassin because he can access as an illegitimate son those kind of like court settings, but he is not as, you know, indispensable as an actual prince. So it's very very interesting, I think Robin Hobb's writing is absolutely incredible, I cannot wait to get the rest of this series. It's just very special, you read it you think, huh, Robin Hobb can fucking write, you know what I mean? You read it and like I think I gave this four stars, but I can objectively see it's like without fault. I gave it four stars out of my personal enjoyment, but like it is perfect. Essentially like Robin Hobb really knows what to do and what to write and I can only imagine I'm gonna fall in love with this series more and more like I did with the Greenbone Saga. So there we have it, my loves, that is my recommendations with where to start with fantasy books. Let me know what you think, let me know if you are starting fantasy and which ones of these you would pick up. Also please put down in the comments any books you would recommend to start with for fantasy, I'd really love to know, I'd find that really really interesting and I thought also be good for people who are coming to this video wanting to know where to start with fantasy to have that kind of like detail in the comments. So thank you so much for watching, don't forget to like and subscribe if you haven't already, I love you so much and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!