Book picks similar to
Basilisk by N.M. Browne
fantasy
young-adult
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Child of Faerie, Child of Earth
Josepha Sherman - 1992
Percinet, half-human son of a queen of Faerie, falls in love with a mortal, the daughter of a medieval count, and leaves his realm of magic to defend her against her cruel stepmother, a secret sorceress.
Mirrorscape
Mike Wilks - 2007
Mel is especially excited by the colors that he’ll be able to use, since color is a very expensive Pleasure, strictly controlled by the sinister Fifth Mystery.Mel can’t wait to enjoy the wonders of the grand city and begin his important work for Blenk. Instead, his dreams are quickly crushed by the reality of days filled with unimportant tasks and bullying by the other apprentices whose wealthy families have purchased their positions. Still, the promise of working under the great Blenk and studying his legendary paintings makes the misery bearable.But when Mel and his new friends, Ludo and Wren, inadvertently stumble into a battle between the Fifth Mystery and the Rainbow Rebellion, an underground band fighting to make Pleasures affordable for all, the trio must step through Blenk’s paintings into the Mirrorscape. In this alternative world, the friends encounter monsters, mazes, talking houses, angels, and more. Hugely original and deeply compelling, Mirrorscape is a thrilling adventure filled with the beautiful and the bizarre, the fantastical and the frightening, and entry into an incredibly visual, secret world, where the ultimate weapons are pigment, a paintbrush, and the power of imagination.
Til Death
Kate Evangelista - 2014
Not a day-dreamer, but an I-see-the-future kind of dreamer. Normally this is not a problem as she has gotten pretty good at keeping her weird card hidden from everyone in her small town. Except from her best friend Kyle and her grandparents, of course. But when Selena dreams of her own rather bloody death, things get a little too freaky even for her.Enter Dillan Sloan. Selena has seen the new guy in a different dream, and he is even more droolworthy in person. Beyond the piercing blue eyes and tousled dark hair, there is something else that draws her to him. Something…electric. Unfortunately, Dillan makes it more than clear that he does not feel the same. They just met, so why would he act like he hates her?When Dillan and Selena are forced together one weekend to work on a school project, Selena prepares to be ignored as usual. But when she stumbles across a few undead in the backyard, Dillan comes to her rescue and reveals a whole lot more. Not only is he part of a society that hunts otherworldly creatures…she is too. And she is being targeted by a force bigger and darker than anything she ever imagined. Despite her death dream, Selena is not going to give up easy, especially when she discovers that Dillan might not actually hate her after all.
Half a Soul
Olivia Atwater - 2020
Dora’s only goal for the London Season this year is to stay quiet and avoid upsetting her cousin’s chances at a husband… but when the Lord Sorcier of England learns of her condition, she finds herself drawn ever more deeply into the tumultuous concerns of magicians and faeries.Lord Elias Wilder is handsome, strange, and utterly uncouth—but gossip says that he regularly performs three impossible things before breakfast, and he is willing to help Dora restore her missing half. If Dora’s reputation can survive both her ongoing curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world… but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.
Changeling
Molly Harper - 2018
That is, until one day, Sarah accidentally levitates Mrs. Winter’s favorite vase in the parlor...But Snipes aren’t supposed to have magical powers…and the existence of a magical Snipe threatens the world order dictated during the Guardians’ Restoration years ago. If she wants to keep her family safe and protect her own skin, Sarah must figure out how to fit into posh Guardian society, master her newfound magical powers and discover the truth about how an ordinary girl can become magical.
Lost in the Labyrinth
Patrice Kindl - 2002
She stood at the end of a long corridor, weeping. “Can it really be you, Ariadne, come back after all this time?” I whispered. She did not answer, but began slowly to sink through the floor. Princess Xenodice is content to spend her days tending to the animals in the royal menagerie, haunting the workshop of a beautiful young man named Icarus, and visiting her brother who lives in the Labyrinth. Her safe and privileged world, however, has ominous cracks underfoot. Soon battles for power and revenge threaten everything Xenodice loves. Betrayals from both within and without her family lead to a series of tragedies that Xenodice struggles to avert. From the deepest layer of the Labyrinth under the Royal Palace to the topmost floor of the prison tower, this enthralling version of the myth of the maze and the Minotaur by master storyteller Patrice Kindl is filled with the marvelous and the strange.
City of a Thousand Dolls
Miriam Forster - 2013
Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. Nisha makes her way as Matron’s assistant, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city’s handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls’ deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls—but her own life.
Gideon the Cutpurse
Linda Buckley-Archer - 2006
Gideon Seymour, cutpurse and gentleman, hides from the villainous Tar Man. Suddenly the sky peels away like fabric and from the gaping hole fall two curious-looking children. Peter Schock and Kate Dyer have fallen straight from the twenty-first century, thanks to an experiment with an antigravity machine. Before Gideon and the children have a chance to gather their wits, the Tar Man takes off with the machine -- and Kate and Peter's only chance of getting home. Soon Gideon, Kate, and Peter are swept into a journey through eighteenth-century London and form a bond that, they hope, will stand strong in the face of unfathomable treachery.
These Vicious Masks
Tarun Shanker - 2016
Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.
The Initiation
L.J. Smith - 1992
Cassie is initiated into her hometown's coven of witches but her love for the coven leader's boyfriend could prove deadly.
The Cabinet of Wonders
Marie Rutkoski - 2008
But it's never been ordinary. She has a pet tin spider named Astrophil who likes to hide in her snarled hair and give her advice. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind. He has been commissioned by the prince of Bohemia to build the world's finest astronomical clock.Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home – blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and now wears them. But why? Petra doesn't know, but she knows this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander Castle, and steal her father's eyes back.Joining forces with Neel, whose fingers extend into invisible ghosts that pick locks and pockets, Petra finds that many people in the castle are not what they seem, and that her father's clock has powers capable of destroying their world.
Balefire
Cate Tiernan - 2010
After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a tragic car accident, she is forced to leave the only home she's ever known to live with a total stranger in New Orleans. New Orleans greets Thais with many secrets and mysteries, but none as unbelievable as the moment she comes face to face with the impossible — an identical twin, Clio.Thais soon learns that she and the twin she never knew come from a family of witches, that she possesses astonishing powers, and that she, along with Clio, has a key role in Balefire, the coven she was born into. Fiery Clio is less than thrilled to have to share the spotlight, but the twins must learn to combine their powers in order to complete a rite that will transform their lives and the coven forever.
Freaks: Alive, on the Inside!
Annette Curtis Klause - 2006
Everyone has an act to perform, for in 1899 there are not many ways for these "freaks" to earn a living. But what can boring Abel do? Determined to seek adventure and find a girl without a beard to kiss, Abel runs away from home. But Abel finds a harsh world outside of Faeryland. Nothing seems to go as planned and he is even more alone -- except for a beautiful dancing girl who haunts his dreams and seems connected to his ancient Egyptian scarab ring. After misadventure and mishap (complicated by a little problem he thought he'd left behind), Abel stumbles upon a shabby traveling freak show run by the sinister Dr. Mink. It holds secrets that break his heart. Abel's grand adventure takes a dark and dangerous twist, but the dazzling girl of his dreams beckons him onward as does his own true soul. Annette Curtis Klause has woven humor, adventure, history, and fantasy into this exhilarating epic. Step inside and see the show -- if you dare. You will never be the same again!
The Singer of All Songs
Kate Constable - 2002
She knows only the rounds of her life as a novice ice priestess, tending her bees, singing her ice chantments, and dreaming.But then Calwyn befriends Darrow, a mysterious Outlander who appears inside the Wall and warns of an approaching danger. To help Darrow, to see the world, and perhaps to save it, Calwyn will leave the safety of the Wall for a journey with a man she barely knows--and an adventure as beautiful and dangerous as the music of chantment itself.
Seraphina
Rachel Hartman - 2012
Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.