Best Youth Fantasy Picks: Dragons, Faeries, and Forbidden Magic

Fancy and adventurous, this is a haven for lovers of literary genres who crave magical journeys. Readers are invited to explore new worlds where characters wield mythic or unreal powers. The list highlights more than five youth fantasy novels that blend powers, gods, dragons, vampires, and witches with romance, rivalries, suspense, and twists that keep turning the page.

From chilling Alaska where vampires and dragons guard secrets, to the fae kingdom of roses and thorns, each book offers a doorway to wonder and danger. A human’s presence becomes the key to saving a fantasy realm, and readers will sense the tug between loyalty, love, and looming prophecies.

Blood Wings

Rebecca Yarros. Planet

The list begins with Blood Wings, a popular fantasy that combines enemies-to-lovers tension with a dragon-filled world. It follows Violet Sorrengail, who believes she will join the Scribes’ Quadrant and lead a quiet life, but fate pushes her into Navarre’s elite Dragonriders’ Quadrant due to her mother’s expectations. Scarcity of dragons creates a tense landscape where every rider counts.

Violet quickly becomes a target. Many assume she is weak and unfit for the tests, while others would kill her to claim a dragon. Yet others, like Xaden Riorson, see her as a threat simply because she is the commanding general’s daughter.

Blood Wings has already released the first two installments, with the author planning a five-book saga. The Spanish edition of the second book, Iron Wings, arrived in 2024 and is available for preorder at many retailers.

The Court of Thorns and Roses

Sarah J. Maas. Planet/Cross Books

Continuing the list, The Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) brings Feyre, a young human woman, into a perilous encounter with a powerful fae world after she crosses into a forbidden forest. Punishment and peril mix with romance as Feyre discovers a larger destiny that bridges two realms.

Her journey winds through hardship and loyalty as she fights to protect what matters most, even when that means stepping away from her ordinary life. The saga expands into a grand voyage across multiple realms, each more intricate than the last.

A palace of roses and thorns evokes the opulent world Feyre enters, where magic, politics, and personal courage collide. The series currently spans five books: A Court of Roses and Thorns, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruins, A Court of Ice and Stars, and A Court of Silver Flames. It also connects to Maas’s other epics, offering readers a rich web of characters and stories.

Caraval

Stephanie Garber. Planet

Caraval invites readers into a game filled with mystery, magic, and adventure. Scarlett Dragna longs to escape the constrained life of an isolated island and win the Grand Prize at the yearly Caraval festival. The prize promises freedom, but the journey is fraught with danger and deception.

Two weeks before the festival, Scarlett receives a mysterious invitation that offers an opportunity to alter her fate and avoid a forced engagement with a man she has never met. Yet nothing about Caraval unfolds as expected. The game stirs danger and doubt, and Scarlett must navigate a maze of clues to protect her sister Tella and uncover the truth behind the illusion.

In a world where love can hurt as much as it heals, the night holds secrets, and every twist challenges what Scarlett believes. The game demands wits, nerve, and a willingness to risk everything for family and freedom.

Weak

Lauren Roberts. Alfaguara

Weak—an entry from the young adult fantasy scene of 2023—earned a place in the Goodreads Choice Awards for best Fantasy and Science Fiction for teens. The novel travels between two social worlds: an ordinary society and an elite circle wielding extraordinary powers. A king, wary of talent, banishes commoners to protect the elite, turning Paedyn Gray into a survivor who must blend in by pretending to be gifted.

When a brutal set of Purge Trials exposes the true cost of power, Paedyn discovers a hidden strength that could alter the balance of the realm. He may be the only one who can avert disaster, but the path to such power is steep and dangerous, especially for someone deemed ordinary.

As the trials unfold, the stakes rise. If the challenges don’t do him in, the truth about his own abilities could. The book asks how far a person will go for dignity, belonging, and a future that doesn’t erase who they are.

I Miss

Tracy Wolff. Planet

Grace has just lost her parents and moves to Alaska to join the Katmere boarding school run by her uncle. There, she befriends her cousin Macy and eventually discovers the campus houses supernatural beings such as vampires, witches, and dragons. The setting is welcoming, yet it hides deep, dangerous secrets that test Grace at every turn.

Grace’s path becomes tangled with Jaxon Vega, a powerful vampire who is the son of the rulers of the Vampire Court. His allure and mystery pull her in, but his world runs on rules and loyalties that could complicate any budding romance. The romance is intense, and the stakes are high as Grace learns more about the history that binds her fate to the vampire realm.

Anhelo is the Spanish title in the CRAVE saga, which continues with five more books: Furia, Ansia, Fulgor, Hechizo, and Extasis, published up to 2023. The series keeps expanding, inviting readers to lose themselves in a mediaeval-fantasy romance with modern sensibilities.

Divine Rivals

Rebecca Roanhorse. disk

Divine Rivals closes the list with a standout among teen fantasy titles published in 2023. The novel, a winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for best young adult fantasy and science fiction, follows two young rival journalists who discover a magical bond amidst a war among gods.

Iris Winnow longs to stay close to her family even as her mother struggles with addiction and her brother fights on the side of the divine. Iris pursues a career as a columnist at a major newspaper, hoping for a path to safety and clarity. When conflict and ambition pull her toward the front lines, she must navigate danger while seeking a way to reconnect with those she loves.

To cope with anxiety, Iris writes letters to her brother, only to have them intercepted by her rival Roman Kitt. Their anonymous correspondence becomes a lifeline that complicates a growing, unlikely bond. As the battles rage around them, loyalty, courage, and a stubborn hope illuminate their shared path.