what is adult fantasy genre and adult fantasy standalones to read

Adult fantasy standalone

 

Before recommending the book let me explain what is Adult fantasy.

What is Adult Fantasy?

 

Adult Fantasy is a subset of fantasy fiction aimed at an adult audience as it has more mature theme and is written in tone that appeals to adults.

 

Fantasy books have creatures and concepts that do not exist in the real world. Adult Fantasy can be any type of fantasy genre, but as a general rule the main character and cast will be aged 20+, but of course that’s not rule set in stone, there are adult fantasy that have teenage characters.

 

The storylines focus on adult experiences and the themes of adult fantasy are handled with less angst in a mature outlook.

 

The viewpoints (point from which the story is told) in adult fantasy are different from what you normally read in YA fantasy. Various points of view may be explored without intruding on the vibe of the novel. Language and vocabulary can be complex.

 

Some of the popular adult fantasy series like A Song of Ice and Fire, The First Law, and Mistborn took the world by storm.

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

This Japanese-inspired military fantasy follows two characters: Misaki, a mother struggling to repress her violent past, and her 14-year-old son Mamoru, struggling to grasp his violent future.

Misaki, a ferocious fighter, left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. But with the growing threats from across the sea, increasing questions from her son, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

'Born into Kusanagi's legendary Matsuda family, Mamoru was supposed to master his family’s fighting techniques, but with the war on his doorstep, he does not have the time to learn. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

This story might not be what you expected at the start, but trust me, this is a fantastic book, and you will definitely love it. This book is more character-driven. M.L. Wang has undoubtedly done a phenomenal job of weaving these characters.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

As expected from Brandon Sanderson, this story is set in a bizarre world with magic that has to do with colors, breath, and more.

Two sisters who are princesses, one of whom has been trained her whole life to fulfill a marriage alliance but then, at the last minute, her father decides to send the other sister, who has no preparation. And so, the sister, who has spent her whole life training, decides she’s going to go on this rescue mission to help her sister. She is trying to navigate the politics of this other kingdom that she’s been married into.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Elantris was built on magic, and it thrived. But then the magic began to fade, and Elantris began to rot. And now its shattered citizens face domination by a powerful Imperium motivated by dogged religious views.

Can a young princess unite the people of Elantris, rediscover the lost magic, and lead a rebellion against the imperial zealots? Brandon Sanderson's debut fantasy showed his skill as a storyteller and an imaginer of baroque magical systems to be fully developed from the start.

Best Serve Cold by Joe Abercrombie

This classic revenge story follows Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ. Perhaps too famous because she was betrayed, thrown down a mountain, and left for dead by her employer. However, she survived, and now she is burning with vengeance. Whatever the cost, the seven men who caused this must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass murderer obsessed with numbers, and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies make up the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper, despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. 'A book I could not put down," Ann Patchett? an exciting, sexy, violent Superman version of the Iliad? guardian? sexy, dangerous, or mystical? Bettany Hughes.

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

As princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur, Minos's greatest shame and Ariadne's brother, demands blood every year.

When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives in Crete as a sacrifice to the beast, Ariadne falls in love with him. But helping Theseus kill the monster means betraying her family and country, and Ariadne knows only too well that in a world ruled by mercurial gods, drawing their attention can cost you everything.

In a world where women are nothing more than the pawns of powerful men, will Ariadne's decision to betray Crete for Theseus ensure her happy ending? Or will she find herself sacrificed for her lover's ambition?

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

Elektra is a mythological story told from the perspective of these three women in the Trojan War.

Clytemnestra, who is the sister of Helen and the wife of Agamemnon, Cassandra, who is the princess of Troy, is cursed by Apollo, and then there is Elektra, who is the youngest of the daughters of Clytemnestra.
 and Agamemnon.

Three of these women are given voice in this novel; their lives are now brought to life, and each of the characters has their own destiny and ambition.

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology.

Angrboda's story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. As a punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, whom Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin's all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.

With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she's foreseen for her beloved family or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales, this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me.

So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on the legends of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother and listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear her.

Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her.

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

Dynasties battle for the crown in Tessa Gratton's debut adult epic fantasy, The Queens of Innis Lear.

Three Queens. One crown. All out war.

The king’s three daughters

Gaela. Ruthless Commander.
I am the rightful heir of Innis Lear. No more will I wait in the shadows and watch my mother’s murderer bleed my island dry.

The king’s hold on the crown must end willingly or at the edge of my sword.

Regan, Master Manipulator.
To secure my place on the throne, I must produce an heir. Countless times I have fed the island’s forests my blood. Yet my ambition is cursed.

No matter what or whom I must destroy, I will wield the magic of Innis Lear.

Elia. Star-blessed Priest.
My sisters hide in the shadows like serpents, waiting to strike our ailing king. I must protect my father, even if it means marrying a stranger.

We all have to make sacrifices. Love and freedom will be mine.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty—until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.

When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk—grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh—Miryem's fate and that of two kingdoms will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar.

But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.

Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tales, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the woods, and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's dark magic. However, his help comes at a terrible price. One young village woman must serve him for ten years, leaving all she values behind. Agnieszka fears her dearest friend Kasia will be picked at the next choosing, for she's everything Agnieszka is not: beautiful, graceful, and brave.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

Stories don't have to be true to be real.

In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king's blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrenders.

But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he's no ordinary woodsman; he's the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and start a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a criticized foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it's like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother.

As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they're on and what they're willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.

Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher

A dark and compelling fantasy about sisterhood, impossible tasks, and the price of power from award-winning author T. Kingfisher

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to her rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.

Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller

Charm is a witch, and she is alone. The last of a line of conquered necromantic (something like black magic) workers, now confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow

Charm is a prisoner and a survivor. Charm tends the trees and their clattering fruit for the sake of her children, painstakingly growing and regrowing them with their fruit: shame, justice, desire, pride, and pain.

Charm is a whore and a madam. The wealthy and powerful of Borenguard come to her house to buy time with the girls who aren't real.

Except on Tuesdays, which is when the Emperor himself lays claim to his mistress, Charm herself.

But now Charm is also the only person who can keep an empire together, as the Emperor summons her to his deathbed and charges her with choosing which of his awful, faithless sons will carry on the empire—by discovering which one is responsible for his own murder.

If she does this last thing, she will finally have what has been denied her since the fall of Inshil—her freedom. But she will also betray the ghosts past and present that live on within her heart.

Charm must choose. Her dead Emperor’s will or the whispers of her own ghosts. Justice for the empire or her own revenge.

Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova

The elves come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death.

Three thousand years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic until the treaty was formed. For centuries, the elves have taken a young woman from Luella's village to be their Human Queen.

To be chosen is seen as a mark of death by the townsfolk. Nineteen-year-old Luella is grateful to have escaped as a girl. Instead, she's dedicated her life to studying herbology and becoming the town's only healer.

That is, until the Elf King unexpectedly arrives for her.

Everything Luella thought she knew about her life and herself was a lie. Taken to a land filled with wild magic, Luella is forced to be the new queen of a cold yet blisteringly handsome Elf King. Once there, she learns about a dying world that only she can save.

The magical land of Midscape pulls on one corner of her heart; her home and people tug on another; but what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted.

 

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

On Crow Island, people whisper that real magic lurks just below the surface.

But magic doesn’t interest Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s on the island only to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one.

Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the most mesmerizing may be her enigmatic new neighbor.

Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. Soon, Annie is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

To those who are bright and young, to those who are wild and wicked, welcome to Crow Island.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts, and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut-paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo's debut novel, The Chosen and the Beautiful, reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess and introduces a major new literary voice.

Never Die by Rob J. Hayes

Samurai, shinigami, vengeful spirits, and an impossible quest

The Emperor of Ten Kings has plunged Hosa into war, and the gods are angry.

When the god of death gives Ein a mission to kill the immortal emperor, he knows he can't do it alone. He needs allies—heroes who will fight for him. How else can an eight-year-old boy hope to do the impossible?

Whispering Blade, Iron Gut Chen, the Century Blade, and the Flaming Fist. These are all the names of legends. And the god of death has given Ein a way to bind them to his cause. There is only one catch. In order to serve him, they must first die.

Never Die is a stand-alone story set in the world of Mortal Techniques. It’s a wuxia adventure filled with samurai, shinigami, heroes, and vengeful spirits.

Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long

Hessa is an Eangi, a warrior priestess of the Goddess of War, with the power to turn an enemy's bones to dust with a scream. Banished for disobeying her goddess's command to murder a traveler, she prays for forgiveness alone on a mountainside.

While she is gone, raiders raze her village and obliterate the Eangi priesthood. Grieving and alone, Hessa, the last Eangi, must find the traveler, atone for her weakness, and secure her place with her loved ones in the High Halls. As clans from the north and legionaries from the south tear through her homeland, slaughtering everyone in their path, Hessa strives to win back her goddess' favor.

Beset by zealot soldiers, deceitful gods, and newly awakened demons at every turn, Hessa burns her path towards redemption and revenge. But her journey reveals a harrowing truth: the gods are dying and the halls of the afterlife are fading. Soon, Hessa's trust in her goddess weakens with every unheeded prayer.

Thrust into a battle between the gods of the Old World and the New, Hessa realizes there is far more on the line than securing a life beyond her own death. Bigger, older powers slumber beneath the surface of her world. And they're about to wake up.

The Inheritance of Cadia Divina by Zoraida Cordova

The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low or empty or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—even for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly’s daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, the four descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

Vern, seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised, flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past and, more troublingly, the future outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering not only the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, and too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed—something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, and wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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.