Best Urban / Contemporary Fantasy Books to Start With

Richard Mayhew is a young London businessman with a perfectly normal life—until he stops to help a girl bleeding on the pavement. His act of charity drops him into a world he never knew existed, a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that lives in the hidden gaps and secret places of London Below.

According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, the world will end on a Saturday. An angel and a demon who have been on Earth since The Beginning must work together to avert Armageddon—but they rather like the world as it is.

Book 1 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch. My name is Peter Grant, and I used to be a probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the Filth. My story really begins when I tried to take a witness statement from a man who was already dead... Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. After taking a statement from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost, Peter comes to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Suddenly, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic. Praise for the Rivers of London novels: 'Ben Aaronovitch has created a wonderful world full of mystery, magic and fantastic characters. I love being there more than the real London' NICK FROST 'As brilliant and funny as ever' THE SUN 'Charming, witty, exciting' THE INDEPENDENT 'An incredibly fast-moving magical joyride for grown-ups' THE TIMES Discover why this incredible series has sold over two million copies around the world. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams - don't panic - you will love Ben Aaronovitch's imaginative, irreverent and all-round irresistible novels.

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home and remembers an extraordinary event from when he was seven years old. He befriended a girl at the end of his lane whose family kept something ancient and unknowable in their pond. A meditation on memory, childhood, and the unknowable forces that shape our lives.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Two young magicians are trained from childhood to compete against each other in an arena they cannot choose to leave—a mysterious black-and-white circus that becomes an obsession for all who encounter it.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins stumbles across a book in his university library that contains a story from his own childhood. He follows a series of clues leading him to a subterranean world beneath a hotel—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, and assassins. A timeless love story set in an underground sea of story.

'You don't read this book so much as surrender to it. A dark and heady swoon' THE GUARDIAN 'As rich is suspense as it is in lush '50s atmosphere' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY He is trying to poison me. You must come for me, Noemí. You have to save me. After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, socialite Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She's not sure what she will find - her cousin's husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she's also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin's new alluring, menacing husband; not of his father; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with dark visions. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire keeps them safe from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper, she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may find it impossible to escape. 'Darkly brilliant and captivating' YANGSZE CHOO, bestselling author of The Fox Wife 'Moreno-Garcia gets it absolutely right' THE TELEGRAPH

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a 300-year story of a deal struck with a god of darkness.

El Higgins is at a school full of monsters—and she's not talking about the students. The Scholomance has no teachers, no library, and no dining hall. It just has students, trying to learn enough magic to survive before monsters kill them. El has been assigned to the most dangerous room, and the only student willing to help her is the one she hates most.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The specter of graduation looms large as Naomi Novik’s groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling trilogy continues in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education. “The climactic graduation-day battle will bring cheers, tears, and gasps as the second of the Scholomance trilogy closes with a breathtaking cliff-hanger.”—Booklist (starred review) WINNER OF THE LODESTAR AWARD • HUGO AND LOCUS AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Polygon, Thrillist, She Reads In Wisdom, Shelter. That’s the official motto of the Scholomance. I suppose you could even argue that it’s true—only the wisdom is hard to come by, so the shelter’s rather scant. Our beloved school does its best to devour all its students—but now that I’ve reached my senior year and have actually won myself a handful of allies, it’s suddenly developed a very particular craving for me. And even if I somehow make it through the endless waves of maleficaria that it keeps throwing at me in between grueling homework assignments, I haven’t any idea how my allies and I are going to make it through the graduation hall alive. Unless, of course, I finally accept my foretold destiny of dark sorcery and destruction. That would certainly let me sail straight out of here. The course of wisdom, surely. But I’m not giving in—not to the mals, not to fate, and especially not to the Scholomance. I’m going to get myself and my friends out of this hideous place for good—even if it’s the last thing I do. With keen insight and mordant humor, Novik reminds us that sometimes it is not enough to rewrite the rules—sometimes, you need to toss out the entire rulebook. The magic of the Scholomance trilogy continues in The Golden Enclaves

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, he makes careful observations: the House is beautiful, its rooms full of marvels. He is not afraid—though sometimes he wonders if he should be.

Young Tristran Thorn promises his heart's desire—the beautiful Victoria—that he will retrieve a fallen star from beyond the Wall that separates their village from the enchanted kingdom of Faerie. What he finds is not a lump of rock but a young woman named Yvaine, who is not at all pleased to be captured.

A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND INDIE BESTSELLER One of Buzzfeed's "Best Books of 2022"! An Indie Next Pick! A Locus Awards Top Ten Finalist for Fantasy Novel A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea. Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through. When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days. Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Georgia Peach Award Nominee • Florida Teens Read Award Nominee • ABC Best Books for Young Readers • Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year • A Junior Library Guild Selection • Hugo & Locus award finalist In Other Lands is an exhilarating novel from bestselling author Sarah Rees Brennan about surviving four years in the most unusual of schools - friendship, falling in love, diplomacy, and finding your own place in the world — even if it means giving up your phone. Excerpt: The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border — unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and — best of all as far as Elliot is concerned — mermaids. "What’s your name?" "Serene." "Serena?" Elliot asked. "Serene," said Serene. "My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle." Elliot’s mouth fell open. "That is badass." Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands. It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world. Chapter illustrations by Casey Nowak.

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always felt he was meant for another world. When a mythic city appears out of nowhere and a band of legendary warriors arrives to recruit people for a rescue mission, Lazlo must decide how far to follow his dreams.

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.