20 Best Fantasy Book Series For Adults (2023 Updated)

Nora Roberts books are a favourite of mine. Got this book to take on holiday with me. Couldn’t put it down. Only problem is it’s a trilogy, so need to get the second one now and wait for the third to come out in November this year.

World of Books an excellent service, good prices and arrived just a few days after ordering.

Saw the show. Compelled to read the books. Great value. Less expensive separately than boxed set.

I thought I would read it before rating it and I have yet to read it, but I am looking forward to it. Thank you for allowing me to buy it!!

this is my favourite of the 3 books in the series – I totally recommend it!! but you do need to have read the other 2 books to fully appreciate this one 😉

A fantastic world but very binary, very sword and sorcery and Geralt’s general grouchiness is a boon, and very mature. If you’re expecting this to be like the show, be prepared to be disappointed because the books, the show and the games are entirely different.

These books are reskins of the original English translations and the original original Polish ones have yet another cover. Still, very worth the read. The inaccuracies of the show to the books (the actual canon) will drive you crazy.

Watched the series on Netflix, decided to try the books. I love them. Better than the show. Loving all the extra details and better explained storyline. Hes a great writer.

Unique fantasy series. Very detailed environments and culture. Well written story based upon a non-standard fantasy. Not your standard good guy fare.

I’m 75 yrs old and bought this book to read to my 7 and 11 yr old grandkids. Their interest faded but I was enthralled. a page turner. a wonderful fantasy world in which my thoughts could roam. a continuous “what’s going to happen next” adventure.

Vega Jane sure is a heroine !.

Gave this to my seven year old granddaughter. She loves it.

This series is amazing and the detail put into it is great. I would recommend it to anyone to read.

The Ultimania guides are great if you are a collector or interested in lore and development of the series from its roots to current day. Every page is in color. All the art and versions are shown. Production documents are scanned in.

It really is a great collection.

Lots of good images, both screenshots and artwork from the games and the making-of process. The lore is to die for and it’s good for the super-fans of the series. Though I’ve never played the entire series, it’s fun to learn all about it.

I love looking at the art of all the Final Fantasy games, and Volume 1 is filled with interesting facts about the first six games and beautiful art from them as well.

Lots of twists and turns. A little spicy, you genuinely feel for the characters. I loved the first book and this just added more. Looking forward to the next installment. I screamed with joy at the end and was in a haze for a few hours.

This book was incredible! I did not see that ending coming. Sarah J. Maas is brilliant. If you love sci-fi/fantasy/adventure/romance – you will not be disappointed to get this series, or any of Sarah’s books!.

Firstly – the quality of the hardcover is superb. Secondly, the contents of this book had my jaw on the floor and I will NEVER GET OVER IT. Get on the SJM train now, before it leaves the station and you behind.

What a ride!!!.

I do hope I don’t have to wait for too many years for book three. Patricks writing is so detailed twisting and exciting. The characters are now old friends I just cant wait to find out how it all turns out.

I believe this series will eventually become a classic just like The Lord of the Rings.

Love it! Cant wait for the third installment! Unfortunately it may be awhile

I purchased this book for my daughter. I love shopping at BAM. Such a wide selection.

‘Empire of the Vampire’ by Jay Kristoff is Book 1 in the trilogy by the same name. A story which finds our narrator imprisoned and waiting to die for the crime of killing the Forever King. With the last proper sunrise twenty-seven years past, vampires have spread their eternal empire far and wide.

Destroying the human civilization bit by bit, they’ve rained death and destruction everywhere they’ve gone. Silversaint, sworn brother of the holy Ordo Argent (Silver Order). half-human and half-vampire, Gabriel de Leon has dedicated himself to defense of the realm.

Not that it’s necessarily stood beside him in return. Still. he’s the last line of defense between our world and theirs. Forced to tell the tales of his legendary battles, forbidden love, loss of faith and self.

his captors press for more. Demanding everything of him. intimate details of relationships, the Wars of the Blood, and the quest for hope. The Holy Grail, he has little choice but to give them what they want.

If I’m being entirely honest, I’d been waiting for this book for well over a year. It’s easily my most highly anticipated 2021 release and I’m happy to say, Kristoff absolutely delivers. Not only is this story right up my proverbial alley, gritty and bloody.

with plenty of suffering to go around, Kristoff’s writing skill also seems to reach a pinnacle here. While managing to maintain the rough edges his stories and characters are known for, there’s a dark refinement at work within the pages.

I saw someone mention once that this book. to paraphrase. makes The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice look like an opening act. While I don’t know that I agree with that, it isn’t because the writing in Empire isn’t superb.

There’s no doubt this book is a masterpiece of fiction, but rather because it’s a wholly different kind of monster– (Complete review at Betwixt the Sheets. ) (I received this title as an ARC, but also purchased multiple copies.

All opinions are mine and freely given. ).

I started reading this masterpiece at a slow pace in a group read. I finished reading this by bingeing over 500 pages in a day because I couldn’t stop reading. I laughed, I cried, I finished it at 4am and felt so hollow inside I can’t even describe it.

This is a work of art. Jay Kristoff is beyond talented. This book is so much death and destruction done in such a beautiful, yet horrific way. I can’t explain how overwhelmed in emotion this left me.

I have few words. Seriously. just read this. 10 stars. This is now my favorite book. Everyone loves to ask me what my favorite book is and I always respond that I can’t possibly pick a favorite. Yeah well, this is it.

⚠️ This is NOT a YA book. The vampires in this book are not friendly. There’s also a good amount of cursing and a little smut. Definitely not YA.

Great book, I couldn’t put it down. I was searching for a book that was fantasy with a male lead that wasn’t just a love story or war novel and this was the perfect blend of fantasy elements with the right amount of adult content so I didn’t feel like I was reading another teen novel, I would put it in the same category as “The name of the wind” by Patrick Rothfuss.

I went out and bought every other book from this author not long after, this was by far his best and I cannot wait for the second book.

Excellent mistborn short stories which fill in many holes and explain mysteries in the main series. Emperor’s soul is brilliant and the stormlight novellas are interesting in their own right. Must have for cosmeret enjoyers.

Brandon Sanderson’s books can be more than enjoyed as standalone works but his literary universe really comes alive from reading across the cosmere collection. I started by reading the Stormlight series and had also read Warbreaker and Edgedancer prior to reading Arcanum Unbounded.

The connections between the standalone Warbreaker and the Stormlight series alone were a delight let alone between Edgedancer (originally released in Arcanum Unbounded) and Warbreaker. If you like Brandon’s work you’ll love this.

I can’t wait for Mistborn to arrive!.

The book largely deals in some backstories relating to the Mistborn, and Stormlight series. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I already feel like that my understanding of Sanderson’s grand vision has been expanded.

It has also helped to lessen my hunger-pains awaiting for the next Stormlight chapter.

This is one of my all time favourite books. Alyson Noel captures you into another world in a way no author has ever before. There is a fine line between paranormal and not in this book. She makes it sound so realistic that you are compelled to read more and more.

It follows a teenager Ever Bloom who has lost all her family with only her living and her figuring out what actually happened.

I did quite enjoy this book. Normally i just read vampire romances, but this series was a good change. I liked the story line. Found myself needing to know how the series ended. This is a sneak speak.

After a horrible accident claims the lives of her family, sixteen-year old Ever Bloom can see people’s auras, hear their thoughts, and know someone’s entire life story by touching them. Going out of her way to avoid human contact and suppress her abilities, she has been brandes a freak at her new highschool-but everthing changes when she meets Damen Auguste.

Damen is GORGEOUS, exotic, and wealthy. He’s the only one who can silence the noise and random energy in her head- weilding a magic so intense, it’s as though he can peer straight into her soul. As Ever is drawn deeper into his enticing world of secrets and mystery, she’s left with no more questions than answers.

And she has no idea just who he really is- or what he is. The only thing she knows to be true is that she’s falling deeply and helplessly in love with him.

I liked it, I found the idea and world this book created interesting, proceed to purchase the next two once I was finished. There was only a couple of problems for me reading this, one was it felt like the main female protagonist rambles on a bit too much when describing everything, I admit to skimming some parts because of this.

Secondly, which is a major pet hate for me, there is this almost whiny helpless quality some teenage female characters take on that is hard to tolerate. Some authors in the young adult genre seem to end up writing them like this when trying to portray who knows what trait, but for me having been a female teenager not that long ago with teenage friends, I am hard pressed to find any who act like this.

It just annoys me especially when it is almost the whole book until all of a sudden in the last 6 pages they have learnt a lesson. Luckily though it annoyed me about halfway through with this book it wasn’t enough to put me off.

I am hoping come the second book the main character has grown. I would still recommend this book, not everyone would be annoyed by the same attitudes as me, it has a really interesting world and the society structure was clever.

This is my absolute favorite book trilogy. These books had me hooked from the start. Kf you enjoy action and romance, these books are definitely for you. I have heard these is a movie about these books, but i have yet to find it.

I just hope its near as good as these books were.

This one was fairly predictable. I found it entertaining and enjoyed the development of the main character. Overall, it isn’t my favorite but it was worth the read. The story kept me engaged and enticed enough to purchase the last two books in the trilogy.

If you are looking for an easy read that will keep you entertained, this one fits the bill.

I never write reviews but I had to respond to the other one here. The Magicians is so much more than they said, it’s a witty, self-aware, fantasy novel that is brilliantly written and a joy to read. It steers away from the cliches of fantasy and yet delivers that same feeling of being lost in another world with a complex group of friends.

No, it’s not like Harry Potter, it’s an adult novel about adult people and humans are complex and flawed and there is no wise mentor or big baddie there is instead your own struggles with yourself and your desires + magic.

It is partly a satire of children’s fantasy, but less Harry Potter and much more Narnia, but beyond that, it satirises the promise of children’s fantasy that can stay with adults and keep them searching for escapism.

This book is an excellent read for anyone who grew up reading fantasy.

Hogwarts for grown ups. Really it is so much better. Grossman builds worlds within meta-worlds. Quentin Coldwater, is a Brooklyn teen obsessed with Fillory and Further, a Narnia-like pentalogy published in England in the 1930s.

One day, after his alumni interview for Princeton is aborted, hes mysteriously conveyed to Brakebills College, which is kind of like the M. I. T. for magic. An alternate society of magicians bumpily coexists with our own and injects mature themes.

In a secret world of forbidden knowledge, power comes at a terrible price.

I found this book to be like a remix of the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, but most of the characters are Slytherins and the world lacks detail. I really enjoyed the first half or so of the book, but then it kind of died out because I realised Quentin was an ungrateful git.

I know books are great for showing human faults and immorality, but goodness I just wanted to slap some of these characters. But that might be why it’s enjoyable for some. Moral of the story: if you don’t understand something, and that something is incredibly dangerous/powerful, don’t touch it.

I’ve heard the television adaptation is better than the written series but after reading this one (#1), I don’t think I’ll watch the show anytime soon. Maybe the books get better, I’m not sure, but if Quentin’s in them I’m not reading them.

What did I like? The Sword of Truth series is now over and I don’t have to read anymore of Mr Goodkind’s atheist drivel. The production of the audiobooks by Brilliance is brilliant. Good reader. What did I love? See above.

What did I dislike? Well. 1. First of all, as the series dragged on Mr Goodkind apparently thought since he had most of his reader by the short ones, he could start pontificating on the curse of organized religion.

Of the 28 hours of audiobook, I’d say he spent 3 hours on pointless pontification. I’d suggest you read it to see but that would be doing you a disservice. 2. And then there was the endless monologging.

This is a separate part from the endless pontificating. The individual characters seem to go on and on and on and on. about anything to get Mr Goodkind to his required 28 hours (800 pages?) of book. 3.

The character development stopped about 6 books ago so to expect anything to change in the last book of the series is probably insanity but one can hope. 4. And then with all of the verbiage (remember 28 hours) the story doesn’t really go anywhere.

Well, it does but where it goes is about as far as 9 hours of book would take most of us. 5. The ending is about as stupid as could possibly be imagined. Characters acting COMPLETELY out of character.

Key individuals being terminated with virtually no looking back at the impact they’ve had for the previous 10 books. 6. And last but not least: It was like Mr Goodkind got to about page 700 and realized he’d promised the series was going to end with Confessor so he compressed what should’ve been the real book in the last 100 pages or so.

The only reason to read this book is because you stupidly (like me) got hooked and HAD to see what happens to Richard Kahlen and the rest of the cast. It’s sort of like seeing a bad car accident on the freeway.

Ya gotta look. But you’ll be a better person if you can avert your eyes.

The Sword of Truth series written by Terry Goodkind, of which Confessor is the culminating novel, is one of my personal favorites. The character development and wide scope of characters is superb. There’s great continuity between the novels so readers do not get lost, even when you’ve waited a year for the next installment.

Thankfully, if you have not read this series before, you have the advantage of having it completed in this novel. The storyline is powerful and compelling, but also fun and even lighthearted at times.

Terry Goodkind does an excellent job of describing how the magic works, and while all fantasy novels require a certain level of suspension of disbelief, his is unique and more human. If you’re a fantasy reader, and have never read Goodkind, you’re missing out on one of the best fantasy writers out there!.

This is the second time reading the series, First by book years ago, now by audio as I drive to an from work. I felt like I was checking in on old friends and reliving old stories. Definitely worth the read.

or in my case, re-read.

I’m a pretty big fan of the fantasy genre in general and sometimes I find the stories lacking in originality. Not so with this one. I thought the “food taster” job for the heroine was a creative twist for the plot.

The characters are likeable – even the ones who may or may not be evil. Snyder keeps you guessing with this one. You think you have someone figured out, and then you’re wrong. I really like the main character.

She’s strong, smart, and bold -the kind of character most women like to identify with. There is also a romantic element in the book. This can sometimes be overwhelming in this genre, but it works well here.

You want things to work out, you are interested in what happens, and yet the other parts of the plot are just as intriguing and there aren’t romantic liasons on every other page. I recommend this to anyone who is looking for a fantastical adventure with a strong female character.

I loved this book. I read it all in one day while at the beach this summer, then promptly drove out to the local bookstore and bought the sequel. Snyder immediately establishes Yelena as a round character with whom the reader can easily connect.

She is clever, beatiful but not vain, and strong-willed despite the incredible pain she has endured in her past. The world of Ixia and Sitia that Snyder develoeps in these novels is also amazing. I don’t generally read fantasy, but Snyder manages to sneak in her exposition and explanations of the machinations of the Ixian government without seeming contrived or silly like many fantasy novels.

Overall A++- A definite must-read.

I got out of reading books for entertainment for a while, but when I saw the cover of this book I was excited to pick it up. After the first few chapters I couldn’t put it down. There is action, a little mystery, and some romance.

I bought the paper back a few years ago, but I read it so much the cover fell off. I have recommended this book to all my friends and we all sit on the edge of our seat waiting for the new book of her series to come out.

Maria V. Snyder is an amazing author!.

This is an astounding series. Nora Roberts writes about vampires, sorcerers, witches, gods, goddesses and the eternal struggle between good and evil. Frankly, Nora Roberts writes like a goddess. I have NEVER read a Nora Roberts book I didn’t like.

I’m only on the first book of this Trilogy and it is spellbinding. If you haven’t read the Morrigan’s Cross Trilogy. get it and read it!.

Very entertaining beginning book to the Circle Trilogy by Nora Roberts. I only listen to audio books and Nora Roberts always has the best ‘visualizations’ of any of the audio books I’ve read. The reader always announces what disk you are listening to which is helpful if you are driving and its dark.

The script is easy to follow and there is not a lot of distacting “he said, she said” statements. The only thing that didn’t compute for me in this series is that the narrator is telling the story of the “Circle” to a bunch of children but within the narration are some pretty graphic sex scenes.

Oh well, I guess the kids gotta learn about sex sometime. LOL. Try it, you will enjoy the trilogy. A great story in the tradition of Lord of the Rings.

A Handsome Wizard with a a Vampire for his twin, A BEAUTIFUL Witch, A Giant, A Shapeshifter and a Princess/Queen Markswoman team up in this enchanting tale of survival. The worlds are on the line, not just the present but the past and future as well.

Time lines collide as these hero’s and heroines combine talents to preserver and kick some ancient Vampiress butt. Will they be able to do it? Will love and passion overcome fear and destruction? Read this amazing story and find out.

This review was first published on Kurt’s Frontier. Synopsis: Kaye is a sixteen-year-old vagabond. Forced to live a nomadic life with her mother’s rock band, she grows into a stereotypical rebellious teen.

When they are attacked on the road, they are forced back to Kaye’s grandmother’s New Jersey town. Amid the blue-collar backdrop, Kaye’s life is turned upside down when she saves a Faerie Knight from death.

Kaye finds that she is not who she thinks she is. Worse, she finds herself becoming a pawn in an ancient power struggle between the Unseelie Court, the Seelie Court, and unaffiliated Faeries. Each faction has their own agenda.

Kaye’s life hangs in the balance. Review: A common theme in some of the other reviews on Goodreads is that people either love or hate this story. On the plus side, I am always intrigued by modern renditions of the tale of Tam Lin.

The elements of the old Childe ballad were there. The characters seemed real, and I found them intriguing. In the minus column, Holly Black tried to make Kaye and her human friends gritty. The effort was unbalanced and often seemed over the top.

The rebellious teenager was overdone. While the characters seemed real, I still had a hard time finding them sympathetic until I was almost halfway through the story. All in all, it was decent urban fantasy, well worth a read.

The story is good. The actual physical copy of this book is not. I knew this was a library copy of this book, but didn’t realize that 1/4 of the pages would be detached from the spine. I can still read the book, but will throw it away when done.

This was slow at the beginning, but it was the introduction of the main character. Kaye is just like any other teenager when she’s not at home. At home she takes care of her drunken mother. She thought she was just a normal teenager, but things start to change after she meets Roiben, a handsome stranger, in the forest.

This book had a bit more romance than what I’m used to, but it was still good.

I unboxed this item to check for damage because I’ve seen many reviews online showing damage and wanted to know within the returns policy date. The books I have received have a blunt scratch along one side of the box which is quite visible and a sharp scratch down the spine of “The Last Wish” which has torn the clear plastic wrapper and scratched the books spine.

I picked these books up instore and they were packaged correctly so I can only assume somewhere before these books are boxed these books are not looked after very well at all. Not what I would expect from a brand new box set.

Bought this having seen the first series on Netflix and the books had such rave reviews. The product itself is nicely packaged as a boxed set. Each book is relatively short, around 300 pages, read them all in under 2 weeks.

The content is rather disappointing and sadly the whole plot “twist” and ending is given away at the beginning of the 5th novel. Andrzej Sapkowski is no George R. R. Martin or J. R. R Tolkien which is a real shame had such high hopes for this series.

This series is translated from Polish and I wonder if it doesn’t lose something in the translation. It is interesting and engaging most of the time, though lacks poetry of language. There is a lot of brutal violence against women, not in a gratuitous way but none the less very much a part of the power play of cultural domination.

His understanding of economics is evident in the structure of the stories.

Surprisingly gripping and enjoyable book, despite the grimdark nature of 40k. Being that this is 30k, it’s fun seeing how much more affable everybody was. Y’know, despite the genocide.

For those familiar with the Horus Heresy series, Dan Abnett is a household name. For the uninitiated, know this: Abnett’s mastery of storytelling is on par with Shakespeare, especially with this book.

The book in fact begins with a storyteller recounting a tale of war and misunderstanding. The story is set circa 30,000 C. E. , when mankind has endured various ages of decline and resurgence, gaining and losing technology at each dawn to its latest, curious state of empire, a sprawling intergalactic campaign of occupation overseen by the Emperor of Man.

These galactic conquests are vanguarded by Space Marines — genetically enhanced superhuman warriors who answer to the Emperor’s wishes, as embodied by their Warmaster, Horus. The story in particular details how the Warmaster begins to see a political-ideological cleavage with the Emperor’s pursuit of empire.

Rare is the writer whose work can transcend the narrative, but Abnett is at his finest in this maiden tale of the Horus Heresy. Political intrigue, planetary governance, mysticism, diplomacy, the supernatural, and especially close-quarters combat on the battlefield are all portrayed with excellence and realism.

The battle scenes in particular are notable for both their realism and their length — Abnett does not scrimp, and gives us at times several pages’ worth of descriptive battle. For those who like a good story, forget that this is in the science-fiction/fantasy setting.

Just one paragraph and you’ll be hooked.

I expected this book to read like amateur fan fiction and the best that I was hoping for was to be able to say that ‘it was good for fan fiction’. This was not the case. The book is excellently written, tense when it needed to be and relaxing when it didn’t.

The character development really draws the reader in and is especially clever from the point of view that the reader becomes very drawn to characters that he knows will ultimately become evil.