Book picks similar to
Power Born by Aya Ling


fantasy
young-adult
maid-of-iron
dnf

Protector


Leia Stone - 2017
    Honor. Protect.As an Environmental Studies major, Allie knows the planet is in trouble – a series of natural disasters recently rocked the northern hemisphere, and species across the globe are going extinct. What Allie doesn’t know is that her world's decline is a casualty of an ancient battle called the Night War – the Norse goddess Nott’s crusade to control the weakest of the light realms. And Allie most definitely doesn’t know that her existence is the only thing stopping Nott from dragging the earth into total darkness. When four gorgeous guys show up claiming to be Allie’s Asgardian protectors, she thinks they’re delusional. And when they order her to hunt down the pieces of an immortal weapon, she’s convinced they’re insane. But when Allie’s attacked, the guys’ crazy stories of demigods and dark elves begin coming together. And Allie’s not sure what scares her more – losing her life to the Goddess of Night... or losing her heart to one of her protectors.Let the hunt begin.

Gilded


Marissa Meyer - 2021
    The king orders Serilda to complete the impossible task of spinning straw into gold, or be killed for telling falsehoods. In her desperation, Serilda unwittingly summons a mysterious boy to her aid. He agrees to help her . . . for a price.Soon Serilda realizes that there is more than one secret hidden in the castle walls, including an ancient curse that must be broken if she hopes to end the tyranny of the king and his wild hunt forever.

Gretel


Christopher Coleman - 2015
    When it sets its sights on an unsuspecting mother one routine morning along an isolated stretch of highway, a quiet farming family is suddenly thrust into a world of unspeakable terror, and a young girl must learn to be a hero.

Nocturne


Kat Ross - 2017
    With the memories of her former self erased and nowhere else to turn, she comes to Nocturne hoping to start a new life under the triple moons of the darklands.But when an assassin forces Nazafareen to flee to the sunlit mortal city of Delphi, she finds herself embroiled in a deeper mystery whose origins lie far in the past. Why was the continent sundered into light and dark a thousand years before? And what really happened to the elegant but ruthless creatures who nearly reduced the world to ashes? The new Oracle might know, but she’s outlawed magic and executes anyone caught practicing it. Nazafareen must hide her powers and find a way out of the city—before it’s too late.As the net slowly tightens, something ancient and vengeful begins to stir in the arid death zone called the Kiln. A dashing daeva named Darius is pursuing Nazafareen, but so are a multitude of enemies. War is brewing again. Can she stay alive long enough to stop it?So begins the first installment of an epic new fantasy series from the author of the Fourth Element Trilogy!

The Storyteller's Daughter


Victoria McCombs - 2020
     Then Cosette is born, Giftless. An attempt to hide her misfortune brings her before the King, who entraps her to use her Gift as a pawn in his war. Caught in a lie, Cosette desperately searches for a power strong enough to free her. Intrigued by whispers of an old king and a dark curse, she calls upon Rumpelstiltskin and finds him trapped in a magic deeper than she bargained for. Now, Cosette must fight to reclaim her freedom from the King and break Rumpel’s curse. When time runs out, she’ll lose more than her heart. She’ll lose her life.THE STORYTELLER’S DAUGHTER is the perfect introduction to YA that will satisfy fans of Gail Carson Levine’s ELLA ENCHANTED, as well as Jessica Day George’s DRAGON SLIPPERS and PRINCESS OF GLASS, and Cameron Dokey’s THE WORLD ABOVE.

Tree of Ages


Sara C. Roethle - 2015
    The lines are faltering, undoing the old and bringing life to the new. Trees will fall, and changed earth will be left in their place. A storm is coming."Finn doesn't remember much about her previous life, and in a world that has been changed by the wars of the Tuatha De, where trust is hard to come by, answers are even more difficult to find. Little does she know, an unknown evil tugs on the strings of fate, and the answers she so desperately seeks may be more important than she could have ever imagined.

Tales & Time


G. Bailey - 2019
    Madilynn almost wishes she hadn't, when it reveals she is a descendant of a fairy tale, and her parents tell her it's time for her to attend Lost Time Academy... Being thrown into a world that is literally full of fairy tales, the last thing she expects is to see the four guys she grew up with! Four guys who have grown from boys to now geeky, dark, passionate men who rule the Academy… and they never forgot Madilynn... Time makes all tales come true, including the dark ones...

Until the End of the World


Sarah Lyons Fleming - 2013
    After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too. This is difficult enough, but Cassie’s tag along ex-boyfriend and her friend’s bratty sister have a knack for making everything, even the apocalypse, more unpleasant. When the two attract a threat as deadly as the undead to their safe haven, Cassie’s forced to see how far she’ll go to protect those she loves. And it’s a lot farther than she’d anticipated. This, coupled with Adrian’s distant voice on Safe Zone Radio and, of course, the living dead, threaten to put Cassie right back into the funk she just dragged herself out of. Survival’s great and all, especially when you have leather armor, good friends and home-brewed beer, but there’s something Cassie must do besides survive: tell Adrian she still loves him. And to do that, Cassie has to find faith that she’s stronger than she thinks, she’s still a crack shot and true love never dies.

Rose Petal Graves


Olivia Wildenstein - 2016
    Dad said she suffered a stroke after she dug up one of the ancient Native American graves in our backyard.Creepy, I know. Creepier still, there was no corpse inside the old coffin, only fresh rose petals.As we made preparations for her burial, unnervingly odd and beautiful newcomers poured into my small town. A coroner with emerald eyes and black hair, much too young for the job. An arrogant blond socialite, who lived to get under my skin. And a tattooed Native man, who wasn’t supposed to be alive.By dying, my mother had inadvertently revived an age-old feud between the fae and the tribe that hunted them.A feud that was about to tear my world apart.Dive into this paranormal adventure that readers are comparing to Vampire Diaries...but with faeries.

The Chronicles of Fire and Ice


L.L. Hunter - 2012
    *Is love stronger than race?The world is changing as we know it, the human race is dwindling, but so are the angels. In order to preserve their bloodlines they have bred with humans, creating a new race called Nephilim. But there is one race that is more endangered than humans or Seraphim, Archangels.As most people believe the Archangels have become extinct, rumours surface of a Legend; that a baby was born out of flame, the offspring of an archangel.Dyston Blackbell is tasked to find and protect this child. He sends her strange dreams in hope that she will find him. When he discovers that she has enrolled at his family’s angel academy in Melbourne, he will do anything to protect Scarlett. But when he finds himself falling for her the Heavenly realm rejects him thus turning his wings black.But 21-year-old Scarlett Porter realises that being half Archangel has some advantages. She has developed a unique trait, one that marks her as an Archangel. Will she keep it to herself or use it to fight back?When an old enemy resurfaces, The Lucifites, Scarlett discovers that Dyston’s older brother Lakyn is at the helm of their sinister plans; to destroy the Nephilim race or use Scarlett for their own selfish purposes when they find out who she really is.And when Lakyn discovers that Scarlett had only seduced him to rescue Dyston from his prison in the Realm of Light, it sends him on a journey of self-discovery and destruction. One that sees him venturing farther off course than his father would like. Will he choose a new life of love or his old life of darkness?

Of Ash and Spirit


D.G. Swank - 2018
    Swank.Who's afraid of ghosts? Not Piper Lancaster, because even though she's a ghost whisperer, she's a skeptic. Piper helps her clients settle their inner demons, and that's good enough for her-even if ghosts aren't real. That is until the astonishing reappearance of the ruins of the Lost Colony of Roanoke turns her world upside down. Now belief in the supernatural is at an all-time high, and people are seeing ghosts in every shadow. There's one problem-the reemergence of the Lost Colony has awakened both the supernatural world and Piper's very real talent as a medium. The first time she actually sees a ghost, she thinks it's a hallucination, a joke, anything but what it really is. But she's soon confronted with evidence she can't deny. Ghosts exist, and worse, so do demons. As if that weren't enough, Asheville has a new resident demon that's intent on killing her, and a sinfully handsome stranger who says she's the only one who can destroy it. Barely able to accept the complete reversal in her convictions, Piper must discover-and embrace-her true identity before it's too late.

Queen of Hearts


Colleen Oakes - 2014
    Alice has not fallen down a rabbit hole. There is no all-knowing cat with a taunting smile. This is a Wonderland where beneath each smile lies a secret, each tart comes with a demand, and only prisoners tell the truth.Dinah is the princess who will one day reign over Wonderland. She has not yet seen the dark depths of her kingdom; she longs only for her father’s approval and a future with the boy she loves. But when a betrayal breaks her heart and threatens her throne, she is launched into Wonderland’s dangerous political game. Dinah must stay one step ahead of her cunning enemies or she’ll lose not just the crown but her head.Evil is brewing in Wonderland and maybe, most frighteningly, in Dinah herself.This is not a story of happily ever after.This is the story of the Queen of Hearts.

Pathways


Camille Peters - 2019
    Ever since her father's abandonment, she's vowed to never experience such pain again. But the enchanted forest has different ideas. When the continuously shifting pathways lead her to a mysterious stranger, Eileen finds her promise to fiercely guard her heart increasingly difficult to keep. One night when she becomes lost in a storm, the enchanted forest's pathways lead her to the castle, home to the kingdom's Dark Prince, where Eileen finds herself entangled in what many consider an opportunity but which Eileen believes to be a curse: competing for the Dark Prince’s hand through a series of tests that judge one’s royal worth. Eileen is neither royal nor interested in becoming a princess. But the mysterious stranger she met in the woods has his own reasons for helping her succeed, although the cost of his assistance may be too high: that of Eileen's heart, the one thing she's vowed never to give. Inspired by “The Princess and the Pea” and "Rumpelstiltskin"

The Hazel Wood


Melissa Albert - 2018
    But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away-by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.

An Illusion of Thieves


Cate Glass - 2019
    When her brother, Neri, is caught thieving with the aid of magic, Romy's aristocratic influence is the only thing that can spare his life—and the price is her banishment.Now back in Beggar’s Ring, she has just her wits and her own long-hidden sorcery to help her and Neri survive. But when a plot to overthrow the Shadow Lord and incite civil war is uncovered, only Romy knows how to stop it. To do so, she’ll have to rely on newfound allies—a swordmaster, a silversmith, and her own thieving brother. And they'll need the very thing that could condemn them all: magic.