Alanna by Tamora Pierce
On and off there’s been a lot of conversation about how straight, white, and male fantasy can be. And that’s true, albeit in the process of being corrected. But as a baby fantasy reader I was lucky enough that one of my first forays into the genre was finding Tamora Pierce’s Alanna, the girl who decided to eschew typical gender roles and train as a knight instead of a lady.
Alanna shaped so much of who I am as a fantasy reader and writer, and in the UK the books have just been re-released with stunning new covers. I cannot wait for young girls to discover them again.
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
It’s embarrassing how long into my first read of this book it was until I realised this is a Cinderella retelling. But in my defence, I think it was my first ever encounter with a retelling.
Ella, a girl enchanted to always do as she is told, grows up to be a fiercely independent girl navigating a landscape that turns all the fairytale tropes we know on their head.
The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski
This is a book I started reading one night, thinking ‘Oh, I’ll read a couple of chapters before bed’. Cut to me frantically finishing it at 3am, tangled up in both my duvet and my feelings.
Besides the brilliant characters and romance, I love the world of this book. It is the first, and I think only, fantasy book I have ever read without magic. Our characters might pray to gods, who may bring them luck, but it’s always ultimately wits that save them on the battlefield, not fire blasting out of their fingers.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
I love love loved Alina’s story in Shadow and Bone, but in Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo really takes things next level. Yeah, yeah, it’s about the heist, but the true soul of the book is the characters. Jumping from the single POV in Shadow and Bone to five distinct characters and their stories in Six of Crows, there isn’t a reader who won’t find someone to fall in love with.
I read Six of Crows the week it came out, and spent the next year obsessing about whether my girl Nina Zenik was OK. Luckily if you read it now you don’t have to wait for the sequel.
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
A princess who doesn’t want to get married, and so volunteers to be a dragon’s captive princess instead. Typically, this is a role you are supposed to be ‘chosen’ by the dragon to do, and not a volunteer position, but it’s a respectable place in fairytale society nonetheless and therefore allowed.
There is of course the slight inconvenience of knights always trying to rescue her. I’ve truly never read a cleverer subversion of fairytale tropes. From the angrily released genie to the society of evil stepmothers, this is a perfect book if you like your fairytales with a twist.
The Notorious Virtues is available to order now in paperback and ebook.
For more great YA books, see here.
The bestselling Rebel of the Sands author is back with a glittering fantasy thriller duology, featuring a family obsessed with money, power, fame – and magic.
New York Times bestselling author Alwyn Hamilton was born in Toronto and spent her early years bouncing between Europe and Canada until her parents settled in France. She moved to the UK when she was 18 and has been here ever since as an author/bookseller. Her first novel Rebel of the Sands was sold in 14 territories and won the Goodreads Choice Award for best debut. The Notorious Virtues is her latest book and the first in a duology. She lives in London. Follow @AlwynHamilton on TikTok and Instagram.
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