V.E. Schwab’s Favorite Fantasy Books By Genre

Whenever I talk about fantasy, readers hear it with a capital F. They conjure images of wizards and magic, dragons and fictional maps. And while there certainly is a section of the market devoted to tales with those traditional trappings, I imagine fantasy as far less monolithic — not a single furnished room but an entire house, full of strange wings and less-visited corners.

In my mind, anything that departs from the realistic world — and in so doing enters the realm of the fantastical — qualifies as fantasy. The books below represent some of my favorite intersections between fantasy and other genres or archetypes. You might not think of them as belonging under the fantasy label, but that’s the beautiful thing about a crossroads: It allows for disparate, converging paths. It is a place of more, not less.

Fantasy x Police Procedural

By Tana French

Let’s kick things off with arguably my most controversial pick. French is known for her Irish police procedurals. But tucked into most plots is a small kernel of the supernatural, so slight you could argue that it isn’t there — or you could let it creep in like a mist, adding a hint of atmosphere. In my favorite of her mysteries, a detective arrives at a crime scene to find that the victim looks just like her: not as in a passing resemblance, but a literal doppelgänger. This uncanny mirroring allows the cop to pose as the victim in order to find out who killed her.

Read our review.

By Chloe Benjamin

My love of the literary gray zone continues in Benjamin’s best-selling debut novel, in which four adolescent siblings visit a fortune teller, who tells each of them when they will die. The book explores identity across generations, and asks both the reader and the Gold children to walk the line between choice and fate, fantasy and self-fulfilling prophecy. Is the fortune teller truly clairvoyant? Or is the potential of her power enough to change the course of four lives?

Fantasy x Historical Fiction

By Colson Whitehead

Whitehead’s fantastical reimagining of the metaphorical railroad by which enslaved people escaped the American South as a literal train line — complete with engineers, tracks and subterranean tunnels — transmutes history into an allegorical epic. This reframing may push the bounds of reality, but it in no way diminishes the weight of the history. Instead, it allows Whitehead an even greater set of tools with which to build his storytelling engine.

Read our review.

Fantasy x Even More Alternate History

By Scott Lynch

We tend to assume that fantasy requires some element of magic. But if realism denotes a basis in reality, you could argue that the conjuring of a fictional world is enough of a departure from our realm to qualify a story as fantasy. This is the case with Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard series. Set in a Venice-inspired imaginary city, this tale of an orphan thief is full of intrigue, heists and cunning plots. Locke’s knack for getting out of trouble has me constantly forgetting he doesn’t have magic on his side.

Fantasy x Cozy Romance

By Travis Baldree

Who says cozy romance and epic fantasy can’t go hand in hand? In “Legends & Lattes,” Baldree takes a Dungeons and Dragons-esque setting and, instead of playing out a massive high-stakes quest, focuses on the gentle minutiae of everyday life, to delightful effect. It turns out you don’t need battles in order to care about what happens to characters who usually occupy the battlefield; the small dramas of an orc veteran and her coffee shop feel just as meaningful, when given space to play out.

Fantasy x Crime

By Fonda Lee

Fantasy often takes the abstract concept of power and makes it literal, whether as elemental magic, necromancy or, in the case of Lee’s exquisite Green Bone Saga series, the energy-enhancing power of jade. Set on an Asian-inspired island, this slick, expansive and stylish tale follows two rival crime syndicates who wage territorial wars and engage in up-close combat.

Fantasy x Horror (and History)

By Tananarive Due

Sitting at one of the most popular genre intersections, given horror’s frequent use of the spectral, “The Reformatory” is a haunting and horrific book — a ghost story set at a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South (based on the same Florida institution that inspired Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys”). A deeply grounded and disturbing history centering the ghosts of those already taken and a boy who needs their help to escape, Due’s novel is at once a genre-crossing and genre-defying work.

Read our review.