Book picks similar to
Spark and Carousel by Joanne Hall
fantasy
great-fantasy
small-press-and-indie
entered
The Dragon Knight Order
Gabriel Vicioso - 2012
Now 25 years later, the Order has been diminish to a mere handful of Knights and stands on the break of extinction but not all hope is lost when a young boy is selected to join the ranks of the legendary Dragon Knights. Thrown into a world of politics, fighting and constant threats to his life, Alexander Kerm must learn the ways of the Dragon Knights in order to survive the challenges that wait him at the Central Academy and his future life as a Knight. But when an old enemy stirs in the east his life will become the focus of powers beyond his control.
The Tears of Elios
Crista McHugh - 2011
If she wants to survive, she'll have to stick to them, especially with a genocidal tyrant hell-bent on destroying all the non-humans in the realm. But everything falls apart when a human saves her life.Gregor knows he's inviting trouble when he helps a wounded shape-shifter, but he can't pass up the opportunity to study one before they become extinct. She disturbs the quiet order of his scholarly existence, vexes him in more ways than he can count, and encourages him to break enough of the kingdom's laws so that not even being the king's cousin will save his head. The problem is, he's already lost his heart.
If A Dragon Cries (The Legend of Hooper's Dragons Book 1)
Gary J. Darby - 2016
It also says she will save everyone from the catastrophe. Hooper doesn’t believe in such nonsense, but he is about to find out how utterly wrong he is, and so is everyone else on Erdron.Terribly burned by dragon fire, Hooper’s hatred of dragons sears his soul. Yet, it is his lot to work around the foul beasts day and night on a dragon holding. When Golden Wind is born on the farm, Wilders, savage warriors who ride scarlet dragons attack the stead to steal the golden. Hooper is the only one who can save the golden from the Wilders but just before he reaches her; he stops, unable to go on, torn with indecision spurred by his loathing of dragons. As he stands frozen, a tiny wisp of light pushes away his dark hatred and with it, a gentle whisper, but what if the lore is true and only she can rescue us all?If a Dragon Cries is Book One in the fantasy series, The Legend of Hooper’s Dragons. A riveting tale of magic, mystical dragons, and engaging characters, Gary Darby will transport you into in a world where dragons and one young man can destroy or save a world.Buy now and treat your imagination to a feast of epic fantasy on a grand scale! Available both as an audible book and e-book on Amazon..
Sorcery and Sin: The Complete Trilogy
Justin DePaoli - 2018
But now sin is the world's only hope.This gripping collection includes all three novels of Sorcery and Sin, an epic fantasy about the return of vengeful dragons, a world annihilated by forbidden sorcery, and depraved gods on the verge of madness.Book 1: The Dragon ThiefSorcery is a sin that has been purged. But now sin is the world's only hope.Lavery Opsillian would trade anything, even his ghostly friends in the city tombs who comfort him, to have his father back. Instead, he must face reality as Valios' new king.But his kingship is short-lived. Seized by cutthroats and held for ransom, Lavery learns he possesses a gift he soon deems a curse, but one that may well douse the flames threatening to engulf his world.Sorcery has returned, and dragons are coming.Book 2: Reign of GodsOriana Gravendeer wants to change the world. But first, she must conquer it.With a powerful kingdom as her ally, a brood of dragons at her disposal, and sorcery at her command, overthrowing the powers of Avestas should prove effortless.But when an unsettling horror washes ashore and allies turn, Oriana's hopes begin to crumble. Worse, a malevolence has awoken in the North, and the world will know why sorcery is a sin.Gods are coming. Gods will reign.Book 3: Wrath of the WraithIn a land where winter prevails eternally, Lavery Opsillian searches for a necromancer to save his world from the brink of calamity. But he instead confronts a chilling betrayal by those closest to him.Worse, he learns that the baleful goddess who seized his world is hunting the same necromancer, for purposes far more sinister than he ever imagined.But Lavery has a secret he hasn't yet revealed, and soon the world will know his wrath.
Realm Breaker
Victoria Aveyard - 2021
But she won’t be alone. Even as darkness falls, she is joined by a band of unlikely companions:A squire, forced to choose between home and honor.An immortal, avenging a broken promise.An assassin, exiled and bloodthirsty.An ancient sorceress, whose riddles hide an eerie foresight.A forger with a secret past.A bounty hunter with a score to settle.Together they stand against a vicious opponent, invincible and determined to burn all kingdoms to ash, and an army unlike anything the realm has ever witnessed.
Gifts
Ursula K. Le Guin - 2004
Wondrous gifts: the ability—with a glance, a gesture, a word—to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl, refuses to bring animals to their death in the hunt. The other, a boy, wears a blindfold lest his eyes and his anger kill. In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the proud cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and of how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light.
Firehearted
Sabrina Chase - 2011
Exile Ronne tes Arhi fights for her own survival and for what once made the Empire great-honor-wherever she can find it. Even in an outcast barbarian warrior. A story of resurgent magic, adventure, and epic battle by the author of The Last Mage Guardian and the Sequoyah trilogy.
The Keeper of the Stones
M.J. Webb - 2010
Hidden inside is an intricately carved wooden box which houses a set of five mysterious stones. When Jake passes his right hand over the crest on the top of the box, it opens. The stones suddenly erupt. A bright beam of light shoots up to the sky and life will never be the same again. The light is a portal to dangerous and mysterious worlds. But, in activating it when it was thought lost forever, Jake has unwittingly revealed the continued existence and precise whereabouts of this secret weapon... As well as that of it's new guardian. Jake West is a ‘Keeper’, as were his ancestors before him. Responsible for the stones’ ultimate protection and bestowed with the powers he needs to fulfil his destiny, he will be hunted across worlds. In desperate times against a seemingly invincible foe, he will have to become more than he ever thought possible, for the future of our world and countless others is in his hands. This is book one of a trilogy. It is easy reading aimed at those who are 12+.
Gateway to Fourline
Pam Brondos - 2015
Sending one young woman through may be the key to survival for the kingdom of Fourline.
Strapped for cash, college student Natalie Barns agrees to take a job at a costume shop. Sure, Estos—her classmate who works in the shop—is a little odd, but Nat needs the money for her tuition.Then she stumbles through the mysterious door behind the shop—and her entire universe transforms.Discovering there’s far more to Estos than she ever imagined, Nat gets swept up in an adventure to save his homeland, an incredible world filled with decaying magic, deadly creatures, and a noble resistance of exiled warriors battling dark forces. As she struggles with her role in an epic conflict and wrestles with her growing affection for a young rebel, Soris, Nat quickly learns that nothing may go as planned…and her biggest challenge may be surviving long enough to make it home.
The Merciful Crow
Margaret Owen - 2019
Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime.A fugitive prince.When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses—and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns.A too-cunning bodyguard.Hawk warrior Tavin has always put Jas’s life before his, magically assuming the prince’s appearance and shadowing his every step. But what happens when Tavin begins to want something to call his own?
A Storm in Tormay
Christopher Bunn - 2012
Soon, he finds himself running for his life as he seeks to understand what he stole and why so many people suddenly want him dead. Ancient secrets and curses come alive around Jute as he journeys to freedom in the north, accompanied by a talking hawk, a guilt-ridden assassin, and a forgetful ghost. But, as they seek to save themselves, the little company realizes that much more is at stake than their own lives.A storm has come to Tormay, and, in the shadows of the night, the Dark walks. It will do anything to destroy the land. It cares nothing for the armies and might of men. Only one thing stands between the Dark and its wicked dreams: a thief named Jute.A Storm in Tormay is the complete collection of The Tormay Trilogy. It contains The Hawk and His Boy, The Shadow at the Gate, and The Wicked Day. The story is about 390,000 words long, which equates to over 1,000 pages.
The Last Namsara
Kristen Ciccarelli - 2017
But where there is light, there must be darkness—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death-bringer.These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up learning in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari—a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl.Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend—a slave boy from her betrothed’s household—Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.
Nevernight
Jay Kristoff - 2016
Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?
Sister Light, Sister Dark
Jane Yolen - 1988
And there she drew up the queen of shadows and set her upon the earth. Next she plaited the right side of her hair, the dark side, and with it caught the queen of light. And she set her next to the black queen. "And you two shall be sisters. You shall be as images in a glass, the one reflecting the other..."Raised on a mountainside, Jenna learned the arts of the warrior, and from the mountain women the magic of the ancient lore. The greatest magic was calling her dark sister from the depths of the mirror of the land of light and shadow. Skada, the dark one, existed only when the moonlight cast a shadow or lamplight flickered in a darkened room.