Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2023 - Read an Author's Debut Title (Fantasy)
- Ariel H.
- Wednesday, February 01, 2023
Collection
Fulfill the "read an author's debut title" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2023 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
A Phoenix First Must Burn
Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope
Published in 2020
Black girls, including gender non-conforming individuals, star in this collection of sixteen stories of fantasy, science fiction, and magic.
Children of Blood and Bone
Published in 2018
Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
Shadow and Bone
Published in 2012
Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protegé of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.
Cinderella is Dead
Published in 2020
"Queer black girls team up to overthrow the patriarchy in the former kingdom of Cinderella"-- Provided by publisher.
The Atlas Six
Published in 2020
"The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation ... When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society's archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will."--Page 4 of cover.
The Annotated Sword of Shannara
35th Anniversary Edition
Published in 2012
Living in peaceful Shady Vale, Shea Ohmsford knew little of the troubles that plagued the rest of the world. Then the giant, forbidding Allanon revaled that the supposedly dead Warlock Lord was plotting to destory the world. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness was the Sword of Shannara, which could only be used by a true heir of Shannara--Shea being the last of the bloodline, upon whom all hope rested. Soon a Skull Bearer, dread minion of Evil, flew into the Vale, seeking to destroy...
Black Girl Unlimited
The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard
Published in 2020
From age six through her high school valedictory speech, believing she and her mother are wizards helps young Echo cope with poverty, hunger, her mother's drug abuse, and much more.
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
Published in 2020
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal--kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia's freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic ... requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition. When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?
Storm Front
Published in 2000
A modern-day mage and consultant to the police finds his stale life suddenly enlivened by the presence of a rival in the black arts.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Published in 2016
"When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The patched-up ship has seen better days, but it offers her everything she could possible want: a spot to call home, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy and some distance from her past. And nothing could be further from what she's known than the crew of the Wayfarer."--Page [4] of cover
City of Bones
Published in 2008
Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster.
Solar Lottery
Published in 2012
In the year 2203, when a system of random selection chooses both public officeholders and the targets of political assassination, Ted Benteley challenges the system and becomes a pawn in a power struggle that changes the direction of history.
City of Gods and Monsters
Published in 2022
"Welcome to the city of Angelthene. We hope you survive. Loren Calla has only ever been ordinary. As a human struggling to survive in a city that caters to the needs of vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural creatures, she always assumed her life would remain simple, predictable, and as safe as her world would allow. Until she barely escapes abduction at the hands of Darkslayers?supernatural bounty hunters that possess the Sight, a magical tracking ability that allows them to see a person?s aura?and one of her friends is taken in her place. The abductors are demanding a ransom: Loren's life in exchange for her friend's safe return. Loren will do whatever it takes to get her friend back?even if it means accepting help from Darien Cassel, the leader of the Seven Devils, the most feared Darkslaying circle in the city. Darien specializes in tracking down demons and criminals that are better off dead than alive, so when he takes a job to track down Loren and finds out she is human?and couldn't hurt a fly if her life depended on it?he decides to protect her instead of turn her in for a reward. As much as Loren doesn't want to admit it, Darien is her best and only chance at finding her friend alive, if she can somehow manage to get along with him?and not fall head-over-heels in love with him in the process, which is far easier said than done. When more women start disappearing, and some of them slowly turn up dead, Loren and Darien's search for answers takes them deep into Angelthene's corrupt underbelly, where they discover a dark secret that threatens to unravel their world. And when tragedy strikes, Loren learns that love can make an ordinary person do extraordinary things." - amazon.com, 2/4/22.
The Eyre Affair
A Novel
Published in 2003
Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodas are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Based on an imaginary world where time and reality bend in the most convincing and original way since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Eyre Affair is a delightful rabbit hole of a read: once you fall in you may never come back. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in Wordsworth poems, militant Baconians roam freely spreading the gospel that Bacon, not Shakespeare, penned those immortal works. And forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. This is all business as usual for brainy, bookish (and heat-packing) Thursday Next, a renowned Special Operative in literary detection -- that is, until someone begins murdering characters from works of literature. When this madman plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Bronte's novel Thursday faces the challenge of her career. Aided and abetted by characters that include her time-traveling father, an executive of the all-powerful Goliath Corporation, and Edward Rochester himself, Thursday must track down the world's Third Most Wanted criminal and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. A brilliantly outlandish and absorbing caper destined to become a classic adventure tale, The Eyre Affair is an irresistible thriller and the introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer. In Jasper Fforde's singular fictional universe no literary character is safe from crime. And for Special Operative Thursday Next this is only the beginning ...
The Year of the Witching
Published in 2020
"A young woman living in a rigid, repressive society discovers dark powers within herself, with terrifying and far-reaching consequences, in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut. In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. The daughter of an union with an outsider that cast her once-proud family into disgrace, Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the women in the settlement. But a chance mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still walking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the diary of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood. Fascinated by secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her"-- Provided by publisher.
Raybearer
Published in 2020
Raised in isolation, Tarisai yearns for the closeness she could have as one of the Crown Prince's Council of 11, but her mother, The Lady, has magically compelled Tarisai to kill the Crown Prince.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Published in 2010
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.--Book cover.
The Fast Red Road
A Plainsong
Published in 2000
"The Fast Red Road, A Plainsong is a novel which plunders, in a gleeful, two-fisted fashion, the myth and pop-culture surrounding the American Indian. It is a story fueled on pot fumes and blues, borrowing and distorting the rigid conventions of the traditional Western. Indians, cowboys, and outlaws are as interchangeable as their outfits; men strike poses from Gunsmoke, and horses are traded for Trans-Ams. Pidgin, the half-blood protagonist, inhabits a world of illusion - of aliens, ghosts, telekinesis, and water-pistol violence, where television offers redemption, and "the Indian always gets it up the ass."" "Having escaped the porn factories of Utah, he heads for Clovis, NM, to bury his father, Cline. But the body is stolen at the funeral, and Pidgin must recover it. With the aid of car thief Charlie Ward, he crisscrosses a wasted New Mexico, straying through bars, junkyards, and rodeos, evading the cops, and tearing through barriers Dukestyle. "Charlie Ward slid his thin leather belt from his jeans and held it out the window, whipped the Cutlass faster, faster, his dyed-black hair unbraiding in the fifty-five mile per hour wind, and the never had to stop for gas." Along the way, Pidgin escapes a giant coyote, survives a showdown with Custer, and encounters the remnants of the Goliard Tribe, a group of radicals to which Cline belonged." "Pidgin's search allows him to reconcile the death of his father with five hundred years of colonial myth-making and eventually places him in a position to rewrite history."--BOOK JACKET.
Ancillary Justice
Published in 2014
Now isolated in a single frail human body, Breq, an artificial intelligence that used to control a massive starship and its crew of soldiers, tries to adjust to her new humanity while seeking vengeance and answers to her questions.
Ninefox Gambit
Published in 2016
Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris's career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next. Cheris's best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao--because she might be his next victim.
The Wolf Road
A Novel
Published in 2016
Taught to hunt, shoot, and survive in the remote wilds of a ravaged land by the man who adopted her after finding her wandering in the woods as a young child, Elka reflects on the catastrophic events that destroyed civilization more than a century earlier before gradually realizing that her father may be a serial killer.
The Three-body Problem
Published in 2014
"With the scope of Dune and the commercial action of Independence Day, this near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multple-award-winning phenemonenon from China's most beloved science fiction author. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision"-- Provided by publisher.
Redemption in Indigo
A Novel
Published in 2010
When Paama leaves her husband, she attracts the attention of the undying ones who present her with the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world.
Dying of the Light
Published in 2004
-- -- Los Angeles Times -- -- From the Trade Paperback edition.
A Song Below Water
Published in 2020
Best friends, Tavia and Effie, struggle to hide their supernatural identities in a society that discriminates against people with their abilities.
Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
Published in 2019
When an Earth-like planet is discovered, a team of six teens, along with three veteran astronauts, embark on a twenty-year trip to set up a planet for human colonization--but find that space is more deadly than they ever could have imagined.
Who Fears Death
Published in 2010
Born into post-apocalyptic Africa to a mother who was raped after the slaughter of her entire tribe, Onyesonwu is tutored by a shaman and discovers that her magical destiny is to end the genocide of her people.
Empire of Sand
Published in 2018
A nobleman's daughter with magic in her blood. An empire built on the dreams of enslaved gods. Empire of Sand is Tasha Suri's captivating, Mughal India-inspired debut fantasy. The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited. When Mehr's power comes to the attention of the Emperor's most feared mystics, she must use every ounce of will, subtlety, and power she possesses to resist their cruel agenda. Should she fail, the gods themselves may awaken seeking vengeance... Empire of Sand is a lush, dazzling fantasy novel perfect for readers of City of Brass and The Wrath & the Dawn.
The Element of Fire
Published in 2013
The kingdom of Ile-Rien lies in peril, menaced by sorcerous threats and devious court intrigues. As the weak King Roland, flattered and misled by treacherous companions, rules the country, only his ruthless mother, the Dowager Queen Ravenna, guards the safety of the realm. But now rumors arise that Urbain Grandier, the dark master of scientific sorcery, has arrived to plot against the throne. And Kade, bastard sister of King Roland, appears unexpectedly at court. The illegitimate daughter of the old king and the Queen of Air and Darkness herself, Kade's true desires are cloaked in mystery. Is she in league with the wizard Grandier, or is she laying claim to the throne?It falls to Thomas Boniface, Captain of the Queen's Guard and Ravenna's former lover, to sort out who is friend and who is foe in a deadly game to keep the Dowager Queen and the kingdom she loves from harm. But is one man's steel enough to counter all the magic of fayre?
The Rage of Dragons
Published in 2019
The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost two hundred years. Their society has been built around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine.
Blood Heir
Published in 2019
In the Cyrilian Empire, the gifts Affinites use to control the world are unnatural and dangerous. Anastacya Mikhailov, the crown princess, has a secret and deadly Affinity to blood; it is her curse, and the reason she has lived her life behind palace walls. When Ana's father, the emperor, is murdered, her world is shattered. Framed as his killer, Ana must flee the palace to save her life. To clear her name, she must find her father's murderer on her own. Corruption rules the land, and a conspiracy that threatens the balance of Ana's world is at work. Ramson Quicktongue is the only person corrupt enough to help Ana get to the core of the conspiracy.