Book picks similar to
The Night of Legends by Leslie W.


fantasy
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The Book of M


Peng Shepherd - 2018
    It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.

The First


Dylan S. Perry - 2017
    Naseby, England. Baroness De Meaux lives a comfortable life and is content with where she fits into the hierarchy of society. She was groomed for the story she’s telling but several things set her apart from everyone around her. When her mother passes away suddenly, the visions she hides from the world—the ones that show her the future—force their way to the surface. And when she’s faced with the impossible, it leaves her questioning just how far apart her two contradicting worlds really are from another. Can Margaret make peace with her past and what she assumes is her imagination? Or will she give into the myths from her childhood to shape the future? Through it all, Margaret knows one truth is universal: trust is hard-won and easily broken when you don’t know who’s on your side.

Star Daughter


Shveta Thakrar - 2020
    A secret that explains why her hair is the silver of starlight, or why some nights the stars call Sheetal by name.Stars like her mother, who returned to her place in the constellation Pushya years ago. Since that day, Sheetal has been forced to hide.But as her seventeenth birthday draws near, the pull from the sky is growing stronger. So strong that Sheetal loses control, and a flare of starfire burns her human father—an injury only a full star's blood can heal.Sheetal has no choice but to answer the starsong and ascend to the sky. But her celestial family has summoned her for a reason: to act as their human champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of heavens.Desperate to save her father, Sheetal agrees. But nothing could have prepared Sheetal to face the stars' dark history—or the forces that are working to shut the gate between the realms for good.

Dragon Games: The Legion Academy


Marisa Claire - 2019
    The call is so powerful that no one can resist. The only way to stop the calling is to trek up the treacherous Drakken Peak to confront your destiny.Dima Marren is a simple peasant from the small village of Pithe in the Darkken Empire. Her life was never meant to amount to anything, until she hears the Call of the Dragons. Honor and wealth await, if she can survive what’s to come.If chosen, riders must attend the Legion Academy and take part in the deadly Dragon Games--a brutal competition designed to cull the weak.On her quest, Dima meets Arlen, a gorgeous, but infuriating Noble Rider who reveals the truth about the academy and games. Despite hating one another, they will need each other to survive what's to come.If she can trust him, the truth will change everything.

The Alchemists of Loom


Elise Kova - 2017
    His vision.Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds’ resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn’t a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer turned thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors.Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family’s house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons’ society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King’s assassins.When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go.He offers her the one thing Ari can’t refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom.

In the Quick


Kate Hope Day - 2021
    Younger by two years than her classmates at Peter Reed, the school on campus named for her uncle, she flourishes in her classes but struggles to make friends and find true intellectual peers. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station—and a hard-won sense of belonging—but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years old, and while the rest of the world seems to have forgotten the crew, June alone has evidence that makes her believe they are still alive.She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.A propulsive narrative of one woman’s persistence and journey to self-discovery, In the Quick is an exploration of the strengths and limits of human ability in the face of hardship, and the costs of human ingenuity.

Whisper Falls


Elizabeth Langston - 2013
    But if Mark travels through time to save Susanna, will her brutal world trap him too? While mountain biking in the woods, Mark Lewis spots a mysterious girl dressed in odd clothing, standing behind a waterfall. When she comments on the strange machine he's riding, he suspects something isn’t right. When Susanna claims to be an indentured servant from 1796, he wonders if she’s crazy, yet he's compelled to find out more. Mark enters a long-distance relationship with Susanna through the temperamental barrier of Whisper Falls. Curious about her world, Mark searches through history to learn about the brutal life she’s trapped in. But knowledge can be dangerous. Soon he must choose between changing the past--or dooming the girl he can’t stop thinking about to a lifetime of misery. PRAISE for WHISPER FALLS: "... I would recommend [Whisper Falls] to any reader who is interested in historical fiction, thrillers, fantasy, love stories or time travel." - Youth librarian, Boyd Co Libraries WV, USA "Whisper Falls is a fun, action-packed story…" [School Library Journal] "Whisper Falls is captivating! The themes of love and hate in it's many forms and nuances are timeless and will appeal to all generations... I had a hard time putting this book down until I had savored the last page. And I certainly didn't want it to end. Another book? Yes, please!" - M. Ward AWARDS: Winner of a Bronze Medal in the Moonbeam Award for Excellence in Fiction (YA historical/cultural category)

Spare and Found Parts


Sarah Maria Griffin - 2016
    In a city devastated by an epidemic, where survivors are all missing parts—an arm, a leg, an eye—her father is the famed scientist who created the biomechanical limbs everyone now uses. But Nell is the only one whose mechanical piece is on the inside: her heart. Since the childhood operation, she has ticked. Like a clock, like a bomb. As her community rebuilds, everyone is expected to contribute to the society’s good . . . but how can Nell live up to her father’s revolutionary idea when she has none of her own?Then she finds a mannequin hand while salvaging on the beach—the first boy’s hand she’s ever held—and inspiration strikes. Can Nell build her own companion in a world that fears advanced technology? The deeper she sinks into this plan, the more she learns about her city—and her father, who is hiding secret experiments of his own.

The Ones We're Meant to Find


Joan He - 2021
    All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay, and it’s up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her.In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara lives in an eco-city built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But nevertheless, she decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.

Paris Adrift


E.J. Swift - 2018
    She falls in with the eclectic expat community as a bartender at the notorious Millie’s, located next to the Moulin Rouge.Here she meets Gabriela, a bartender who guides her through this strange nocturnal world, and begins to find a new family. But Millie’s is not all that it seems: a bird warns Hallie to get her feathers in order, a mysterious woman shows up claiming to be a chronometrist, and Gabriela is inexplicably unable to leave Paris.Then Hallie discovers a time portal located in the keg room. Over the next nine months, irate customers will be the least of her concerns, as she navigates time-faring through the city’s turbulent past and future, falling in love, and coming to terms with her own precarious sense of self.

The Seclusion


Jacqui Castle - 2018
    When her father is arrested by the totalitarian Board, a young woman sets out to escape the only country she’s ever known.While on a routine assignment scouting the viability of dwindling natural resources outside the massive urban centers most American citizens call home, Patricia ’Patch’ and her co-worker Rexx discover a relic from the past containing dangerous contraband―unedited books from before The Seclusion. These texts will spark an unquenchable thirst for the truth that sees Patch’s father arrested by the totalitarian Board.Evading her own arrest, Patch and Rexx set out across a ruined future United States, seeking some way to escape the only home they’ve ever known. Along the way, they learn about how their country came to be this way and fall in love. But their newfound knowledge may lead to their own demise.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Vol. 1: At the Edge of Empire


Daniel Kraus - 2015
    Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down on the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.His second life will be nothing like his first.Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there, he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?Ambitious and heartbreaking, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.

Never Forgotten


Kelly Risser - 2014
    Like discovering there's a secret being kept from her and knowing it's a life-changer. After experiencing vivid visions of her absentee father, Meara decides she deserves answers. With the help of her new friend Evan, a guy she happens to be falling for, she embarks on a journey in the hopes of unlocking family history and finding her true self. But when she meets a handsome stranger at a local club who knows far more about her than he should, her world is again shaken. In him, Meara may have uncovered the key to the very secret that will reveal not only who she is... but what she is.

Warcross


Marie Lu - 2017
    The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Drifters' Alliance, Book 1


Elle Casey - 2015
     One hand of cards and it's all over but the crying... Cass Kennedy finally gets what she's been dreaming of for the past ten years: a drifter ship to call her own. All the sim time and battle training is going to pay off in spades as she sets her course for the future. She'll be living on her own terms, not those of her father's. But drifting through deep space with a crew of nutty strangers on the DS Anarchy carries a lot more surprises than she bargained for. Nobody told her that her ship is falling apart, that dead chickens are something you really want to hang on to, and that the OSG has big plans for the universe that don't necessarily jibe with her plans for herself. Jump onboard with Cass and her crew as she charts a course toward an alliance that will either make her or break her as Captain of the DS Anarchy. SERIES: This is Book 1 in a series of 3 or more GENRE: Science Fiction, Space Opera AUDIENCE: For older teens and adults CONTENT WARNING: Colorful language, sexy stuff, and general badassery