Fantasy Books with strong females leads and actual plots

Author

Diana Wynne Jones

An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a...

Author	Robin Jarvis
ISBN	1587171120

In the British tradition of Redwall comes this first novel of a trilogy that is sure to capture fans both young and old. In the sewers of Deptford, there lurks a dark presence that fills the tunnels with fear. The rats worship it in the blackness and name it "Jupiter, Lord of All." Into this twilight realm...

Author	Mark Lawrence
ISBN	1101988851

I was born for killing – the gods made me to ruin.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years...

Author	Jessica Day George
ISBN	1599903229

A tale of twelve princesses doomed to dance until dawn…

Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance...

Author	Anne McCaffrey
ISBN	0345484266

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?

To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen...

Author	Ursula K. Le Guin
ISBN	0689845367

Librarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click here.

When young Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, everything is taken away - home, family, possessions, even her name. For she is now Arha, the Eaten One, guardian of the...

Author	Mary H. Herbert
ISBN	0880389168

You want to read a Fantasy book, with a strong female main character looking for vengance and all that set in a medieval world where magic is forbidden ? Hell yea, then read this book.

Don't let yourself be fooled by this strange book cover, please!
This book is so much more, at least it is to...

Author

Grace Draven

THE PRINCE OF NO VALUE

Brishen Khaskem, prince of the Kai, has lived content as the nonessential spare heir to a throne secured many times over. A trade and political alliance between the human kingdom of Gaur and the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis requires that he marry a Gauri woman to seal the...

Author	Aliette de Bodard
ISBN	1473212553

A superb murder mystery, on an epic scale, set against the fall out – literally – of a war in Heaven.

Paris has survived the Great Houses War – just. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues...

Author

Patricia C. Wrede

Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent -- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic...

Author	Sue Harrison
ISBN	0380715929

In a time before history, in a harsh and beautiful land near the top of the world, womanhood comes cruelly and suddenly to beautiful, young Chagak. Surviving the brutal massacre of her tribe, she sets out across the icy waters off Ameria's northwest coast on an astonishing odyssey that will reveal to...

Author	J. Sheridan Le Fanu
ISBN	0809510839

Bloody relevant to read!


BEFORE DRACULA, THERE WAS...

But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together.

This is a very important book in historic sense, in the genre of vampire reading, due that it was published 25 years before than Dracula....

Author	Laura Esquivel
ISBN	0552995878

Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.

The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller...

Author	Kristen Britain
ISBN	0886778581

On her long journey home from school after a fight which will surely lead to her expulsion, Karigan G'ladheon ponders her future as she trudges through the immense forest called Green Cloak. But her thoughts are interrupted by the clattering of hooves as a galloping horse bursts from the woods, the rider...

Author	John G.H. Dickinson
ISBN	0553494899

FILLED WITH IMMENSE characters, this thrilling medieval fantasy filled with moral complexity and vision announces the arrival of a special new writing talent.

Phaedra, the beautiful daughter of a baron, has been visited in dreams by an elusive knight for almost as long as she can remember....

Author

Rebecca Hahn

A stunning debut novel about a girl who is half dragon, half human, and wholly herself.

As the only heir to the throne, Marni should have been surrounded by wealth and privilege, not living in exile-but now the time has come when she must choose between claiming her birthright as princess of a...

Author	Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
ISBN	0451450507

WHEN EARTH MEETS KELTIA WILL STAR EMPIRES FALL?
When lore became legend on ancient Earth and the powers of magic waned, the Kelts and their allies fled the planet for the freedom of distant star realms.
But the stars were home to dangerous foes, and millenia later, the worlds of Keltia still maintained...

Author	Maggie Furey
ISBN	0553565257

In ages past, there had been four magical weapons, fashioned to be used only by the Magefolk. But their history had been lost, together with the Artefacts themselves, in the Cataclysm which had wrought changes on land and water alike. Lost also had been the history of the Magefolk, and the Winged Ones,...

Author	Janny Wurts
ISBN	0586204822

Widowed by a violent conquest, imprisoned as a spoil of war, spirited Lady Elienne encounters a formidable visitation inside her locked cell. A powerful, unknown sorcerer promises her a reprieve in trade for a precarious fate: safe transfer from her ruined duchy to another world, there to become chosen...

Author	Janny Wurts
ISBN	0061054623

“The waters of the world are deep. Chart your course with care.”

Wizards, demons and coming of age story with a twist. All in a classic epic fantasy setting of the noble good against the hideous evil.

Stormwarden! What a great title, no? Yet, be warned that the wizard of wind and wave,...

Author	Diana Wynne Jones
ISBN	0060298855

Polly has two sets of memories...

One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was ten and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening...

Author	Jane Lindskold
ISBN	0812575482

Firekeeper only vaguely remembers a time when she didn't live with her "family," a pack of "royal wolves"-bigger, stronger, and smarter than normal wolves. Now her pack leaders are sending her back to live among the humans, as they promised her mother years ago.

Some of the humans think she...

Author	Shana Abe
ISBN	0345531736

A rich portrait of post-Victorian England, The Deepest Night seamlessly blends thrilling romance with riveting history and adventure—perfect for fans of Libba Bray and Lauren Kate.

It’s 1915, and sixteen-year-old Lora Jones is finishing up her first year as a charity student at Iverson,...

Author	Vonda N. McIntyre
ISBN	0553296590

While this book gets docked a point or two for the cheesy 70s cover and the title, it deserves a place among the classics of the genre. I first read the Nebula-winning novella "Of Mist, And Grass, And Sand," in middle school, but I never realized that McIntyre had expanded it to novel length. It's a thoughtful...

Author	Emily Gee
ISBN	1907519505

Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince—and the Seven Kingdoms.

In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince...

Author	Juliet E. McKenna
ISBN	0061020362

The Secrets of the Shadow-Men

Magic? It's for the rich, the powerful...the Archmage and his elite wizards and cloud-masters.

Livak is not among them. She haunts the back taverns of the realm, careful to appear neither rich nor poor, neither tall nor short . . . neither man nor woman....