So, I just finished binge-watching Outer Banks on Netflix and re-watching The Vampire Diaries for, approximately, the millionth time. Needless to say, I’m craving new forms of entertainment, and I’m sure many others are too. For fans of science-fiction and fantasy novels, here are a few of my favorites to keep you busy and distracted!
- “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard
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By far my favorite series is the Red Queen saga by Victoria Aveyard. In a world divided by the color of someone’s blood, the Reds are common workers and soldiers ruled by the Silver elite who possess supernatural and dangerous abilities. Mare Barrow, a Red thief suppressed by the abused power of the Silver royals, will do anything to protect her family. When an accident reveals that Mare possesses an impossible and deadly power of her own, the Silvers spin a web of lies to protect their sovereignty and the balance of power in the kingdom of Norta. Mare is whisked away to the royal palace, where they pretend to the public that she’s a long-lost Silver princess, and if she doesn’t play her part, she endangers the lives of her parents, siblings, best friend, and herself. Mare must learn to control her powers and survive the menace of Silver court, all while hiding her alliance with a growing Red rebellion. This series has it all: a strong female lead, romance, and at the risk of revealing too much, a HUGE plot twist at the end of the first book.
- “Shadow and Bone” by Leigh Bardugo
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This series recently came across my radar and although I have only read the first book, I’m already hooked! Shadow and Bone is set in a dystopian world where Alina Starkov and her best friend Mal are soldiers in the First Army of Ravka. Their country has been at war for hundreds of years and limited in resources due to the Shadow Fold, a sea of darkness separating their major cities from the coast. On a mission to cross the Fold, Alina unleashes a dormant power in herself no one has ever seen before. The Darkling, leader of the magical elite called the Grisha, takes Alina under his wing to train her and grow her abilities so that she may help him destroy the Shadow Fold and help Ravka win the war. But, Alina still doesn’t fully understand her powers or the politics of the Grisha, and she must determine where her loyalties lie before it’s too late. The Shadow and Bone trilogy will be combined and brought to life with another of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse sagas, Six of Crows. The television show recently finished filming and will hopefully keep its schedule of being released on Netflix later this year.
- “Four Dead Queens” by Astrid Scholte
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Anyone sensing a theme here? Strong, female lead character on a mission to better the world? In Four Dead Queens, Keralie Corrington is an accomplished pickpocket who lives in Toria, one of Quadara’s four provinces under the rule of the four queens—one for each district. When she steals a package from Varin, a messenger from Eonia, they uncover a conspiracy to kill the four queens. As they set off to discover who the package was intended for and how they can prevent the queens from being murdered, Keralie and Varin realize that they are no longer just fighting to keep the queens safe but to keep each other alive. The pair will find that there is much more to this conspiracy than they could have ever imagined. This is a stand-alone novel and a quick read, so enjoy it while it lasts!
- “Furyborn” by Claire Legrand
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Furyborn packs a punch in terms of length and history. The first novel of Legrand’s Empirium trilogy asks the reader to remember a lot of information about the fictional world’s past in order to understand stories from two different perspectives. At the dawn of the new age, a prophecy was foretold by an angel that two queens would be born, a queen that would be the salvation and a queen that would be the destruction of the world. The trilogy follows Rielle and Eliana as they attempt to claim the title of the prophesied Sun Queen rather than the dreaded Blood Queen. Rielle was born in a time when magic existed everywhere and people with magical abilities were able to draw from the Empirium to control only one power. When Rielle reveals to the world that she can manipulate not one, but all seven elements of the Empirium, she must prove to the kingdom and herself that she is the Queen of Light and that no one should fear her. 1000 years later, Eliana believes that magic is a myth and the tale of Queen Rielle is a children’s story. Raised in the Undying Empire and working as a bounty hunter, she must be ruthless to protect her family. Her mother’s kidnapping takes her on a journey of redemption and revelation until she must face the reality of her responsibility to fulfill the angel’s prophecy. The third and final book of the Empirium trilogy will be released later this year!
- “The Knife of Never Letting Go” by Patrick Ness
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Ooh, something a little different! For quite the change, the main character in this series by Patrick Ness, known as Chaos Walking, is a young boy named Todd Hewitt. Set on an alien planet many years in the future, Todd lives in a settlement with the only inhabitants of the planet, all of whom are men. When settlers arrived on the planet prior to Todd’s birth, they were all infected with a disease they called “Noise”, allowing the men to hear each other’s thoughts and effectively killing all the women. This story starts when Todd is about to become a man by his town’s standards. One day when he’s beyond the town’s borders, Todd’s world comes crashing to the ground when he meets a young girl named Viola. Together, Todd and Vi venture through other settlements, none of which Todd thought existed, to find answers and safety in Haven, a town rumored to be the first and largest settlement in the New World. This saga is also being adapted into a film by Doug Liman and will be starring Tom Holland as Todd and Daisy Ridley as Viola; the film is set to release January 22, 2021.