I don’t know about you, but for some reason I always feel like escaping into a big, thick fantasy novel as the nights grow longer and the days grow cold. Is it the weather tempting me to ignore my household chores and snuggle under a blanket for hours at a time? Is it the fact that Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia movie releases happened winter after winter during my formative years? I don’t know, but if you also find yourself yearning for a big fantasy novel to cozy in with this winter, I have some suggestions. (And if a novel of this size is hard for you to cozy up with, don’t forget you can check out e-books from the Indiana Digital Library!)
Babel: or, the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang (2022, 544 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library.
A Chinese boy orphaned by cholera and raised in Britain is trained to work at Oxford’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, the world’s center for translation and magic through silver-working, where he must choose between competing loyalties.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (2017, 322 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library. Sequels: The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch.
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift – a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (2019, 420 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library. Sequel: Moon Witch, Spider King.
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: ‘He has a nose,’ people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy’s scent–from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers–he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah E. Harkness (2011, 579 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library. Sequels: Shadow of Night and The Book of Life.
Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (2015, 498 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library. Sequels: The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky.
When her husband murders their son and abducts their daughter, grief-stricken and vengeful Essun pursues him across The Stillness, a vast and dynamic super-continent on the brink of catastrophe that will usher in a “fifth season,” a time of uncertainty and hardship. But Essun is as formidable as the land she traverses — she’s an orogene, which means that she can shape the contours of the land. Although she’s spent much of her life hiding from those who would kill her on account of her race, Essun is about to prove how dangerous a woman on a mission can be.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (2018, 466 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library.
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued.
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott (2022, 435 pages). Also available on e-book and downloadable audiobook in the Indiana Digital Library.
The Yaga siblings–Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist–have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive a mysterious inheritance, the siblings are reunited–only to discover that their bequest isn’t land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs. Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home in Russia–but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine’s blood for generations.
