Best fantasy books of September 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
We’re nearing the end of September, and we can’t go out without highlighting some of the best science fiction and fantasy books of the month. This month’s picks include a new take on Dracula, TJ Klune’s much-anticipated follow up, a world where words have lost their meaning, and more. If you’re here looking for your next great fantasy read, there are plenty of great books to choose from.
I love a good story that spans continents and lifetimes, and that’s exactly what Kiersten White delivers in Lucy Undying, wrapped up in a compelling Dracula story unlike any you’ve ever read. This is a book you can pick up and easily submerse yourself in; the opening chapters are written so well that you almost forget you’re in a book, and then suddenly you’re two hundred pages in and utterly transfixed with the immortal Lucy, one of Dracula’s first victims, who is trying to find the strength to overthrow the vampire king and face the past that she’s been trying to outrun her entire undead life. This is a beautiful story of darkness and death that is underpinned by the brightness of life and love. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
Fans of TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, change your plans and get your book nook ready—Somewhere Beyond the Sea is here and it’s just as good as we were hoping it would be. Book two in this series ups the stakes and keeps all the same lovable characters, while adding new voices to the mix and heightening the tension to what comes following book one’s happily ever after. Linus and Arthur, the subjects of said happily ever after in book one, now have to fight to keep their magic alive as politicians threaten to take it away. The pages of this story come alive and wrap you up like a cozy blanket, at once feeling like a magical escape as well as a critical take on the modern politics of immigration, identity, love, and found family. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
I’m going to be honest here. When I first heard this story pitched by the publisher, I felt a hollowness inside that deeply unnerved me. A story where every white person in the world is suddenly dead, and the remaining humans—who are, naturally, not white—are left in the aftermath of this apocalyptic event. Really? It seemed a little too on the nose. But the publisher’s tagline stuck with me: “In a world without white people, what does it mean to be black?” I felt compelled to find out, especially since my first reaction was discomfort. What I ended the book feeling was hope, love, and humanity. This is not a retaliatory novel, but an exploration of what it means to be human, to be a parent, to be a part of a community, and those are themes that can be universally understood. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
This one took me a bit to get into, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. The format at the beginning is so unlike anything I’ve ever read, particularly because the main character does not know her own name—not due to amnesia or some tragic accident, but because the world lost its words. All words. Meaning went away, understanding was lost, and the world fell into chaos. But some people, our main character included, formed committees to become organized, to fight back against monstrous invaders, and, most importantly, to name things again. This is a fascinating tale about one woman’s quest to find sanctuary in a world of chaos, on a search to find her family, and to find herself. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
If you say the words “Greek Mythology” when describing a book, you don’t have to do much else to pique my interest. Crystal King, author of Feast of Sorrow (a fascinating story of ancient Rome—which is almost as good as ancient Greece), brings us a reimagined look at the myth of Hades and Persephone in the form of an amnestic woman who models for surrealist era painters, a mysterious chef who seems to know too much, and a declining Salvador Dali, who must paint a new masterpiece in the Sacro Bosco—the Garden of Monsters. What started as a modeling gig to help her pay the bills turns into a terrifying journey into what might just be the Underworld itself. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
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