9: Chasing the Alpha’s Son by Penny Jessup
Chasing the Alpha’s Son is the sequel to The Alpha’s Son, and the story of the gay and emotionally confused werewolves continues right where we left them. However, this time the plot does not play out in New York City but in a mountain chalet. Here, the werewolf clan awaits the coming of the blood moon.
Max and Jasper try to find out what they mean to each other and whether their relationship can have a future in the conservative world of the werewolf clans. While it is a light read, Jessup’s second novel is all about mental health – especially insecurity, anxiety, and how to deal with your love life in a straight and heteronormative world.
8: Swordcrossed by Freya Marske
Sword Crossed is set in a fantastical world of merchants and seafarers, similar to a place like Venice. Here, it’s all about love, duels, weddings, and keeping your family’s reputation intact.
And this is, of course, where the trouble starts. Luca, a sword master, must train the young Mattinesh Jay to duel properly so Matt can defend his family’s honour at his wedding by fighting any suitor who might want to claim his bride.
But the more often Luca and Matt train, the more they realise they are not just teacher and student. The reader soon learns that not only the wedding is at stake but also that Luca hides a dark secret and Matt is in serious trouble.
Interests clash, passion is unleashed, and disaster follows. Marske’s fourth novel does not necessarily live up to The Last Binding Trilogy, but it is full of surprises, spice, and a lot of romance.
7: The Ragpicker King by Cassandra Clare
The Ragpicker King pretty much feels like the novel in the middle of a trilogy, where the plot advances, the characters evolve, and they really need to go on a journey to get them to the third and final novel.
It is not Clare’s best work; however, she takes us deep into the magnificent kingdom of Castellane and dives into the tropes of romantasy, showing her capability as not only a fantasy author but also a romantasy author.
If you have enjoyed Sword Catcher, you will like The Ragpicker King.
6:Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park is a 20th-century classic as well as a household name. Everybody knows at least one of the Jurassic films – the iconic scenes of raptors chasing humans and the big T. rex munching on goats and humans alike.
But not that many people know about the original novel and how brilliant and deeply philosophical it is. What happens to animals humans create? Can humans control them? How do nature and evolution interfere with human life and Western progress?
All of that, and all the horror of dinosaurs running loose, comes to full fruition in this spectacular science fiction novel that is still looking for its equal.
5:Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Collins knows how to write gut-wrenching novels. In Sunrise on the Reaping, she invites us back into the most brutal world of Panem, where the odds are never in your favour.
It is the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell, and this is Haymitch’s story – the mentor of Katniss Everdeen. Haymitch is in the Hunger Games, and everyone who is familiar with the world knows that he wins. However, Collins conjures wonderful and authentic characters the reader gets to know, root for, and watch die (because the odds are never in their favour) in the most horrific ways.
The world is not cruel; it is humans who are cruel, and literature can remind us of this in the best ways. And Sunrise on the Reaping is one of those novels.
4: The Naked Light by Bridget Collins
Set just after the First World War, this book is about young women who have seen an entire generation of men die, while the few who return are broken and destroyed. Collins cleverly combines horror with folklore and historical notions. And just like in the plots of her other outstanding novels, such as The Binding or The Betrayals, she leads us through a storyline in which the reader mostly does not know what is going on or what is happening in the shadows.
Until about halfway through, it dawns on the reader what the novel is actually about. It creeps up on you like a monster under your bed. Then it is too late to put the novel down. You just want to find out where the darkness will take you.
Collins has created a gripping horror story, combining the very real darkness and despair of post-war Britain in the countryside, the supernatural and uncanny taking centre stage.
3: The Only Light Left Burning by Erik J. Brown
The sequel to All That’s Left in the World does not disappoint. The first book is a science fiction story about a supervirus wiping out 99 per cent of the world’s population and two young men finding each other in this hostile world with no rules, saving each other and falling in love.
The second one is pretty much about the same things, but it focuses on these two young men trying to have a relationship in this broken world. They are trying to figure out what they want from each other and what they need from each other while trying to survive the ongoing apocalypse.
The stakes are very high and, just like in the first one, a rollercoaster of emotions is guaranteed.
2: Emberclaw by L. R. Lam
This duology is a masterpiece of romantasy with an epic twist of dragons. The sequel to Dragonfall excels with excellent prose that reads almost poetically, featuring sensual scenes of romance between the main characters, Everen and Arcady. In Emberclaw, the estranged lovers try to pick up the broken pieces left behind by the explosive ending of book one.
Everen and Arcady are traumatised after the events of the first book. Before they can find their way back to each other, they go through a long process of yearning. Slow burn guaranteed! They must figure out their own lives before facing each other and their feelings, as well as confronting the threat of dragon fire and its magic, which can either save or destroy the world.
Dragonfall and Emberclaw are the perfect duology for young adult romantasy fans who enjoy character development, great prose, and fantastic world-building.
1: Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
And in first place comes another sequel and another duology. The House in the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond the Sea are wonderful testaments to being a parent within the LGBTQ+ community and raising children who are deemed unworthy by their biological parents. The setting is magical, but every aspect of the fantasy has a deeper, allegorical meaning in the story.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a wholesome and heartwarming novel about family, love, and what it means to stand up to people who do not want to – and possibly never will – understand you.
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