Bewitching Fantasy Books About Magical Girls
Long before the term “magical girls” was associated with magical transformations, Sailor Scouts, and universal powers, the literary world was exploring these themes in fantasy and fairy tales. We see our own version of magical girls in our everyday lives and throughout history. Magical girls are all around us — in the coffee shop, at school, they are our grandmothers or even the little old lady who sells flowers on the street. Dive into the endless worlds of magical girls who are often ordinary women doing extraordinary things. Whether you want romance, revenge, or something cozy, this list has something for everyone to celebrate.
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Add to BookshelfStay for a Spell
by Amy Coombe
Coombe entices us with a mix of sultry and enchanting spells that make staying in feel like the most delicious kind of homebound enchantment. Picture a cursed princess bound to a cozy bookstore, condemned to read endless books until a prince finds her and breaks the spell with a kiss. But Princess Tanadelle isn’t exactly counting down the days — she’s found something rare and genuine in the quiet magic of new worlds discovered page by page. With royal parents sending princes far and wide to find her, our bookish princess doesn’t seem to mind.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Keeper of Magical Things
by Julie Leong
Here’s some sapphic magic for those who can’t get enough of friendships and cat-dragons! Certainty is a mediocre mage from a family that expects too much from her. She’s then paired with a more experienced mage named Aurelia — against her wishes — and the two are sent to the most uneventful place imaginable: Shpelling, an unconquerable village that permanently reeks of garlic. Their mission is to search and catalog all the artifacts, but the locals aren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat. Despite their differences, these magical girls find themselves setting off sparks for each other.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop
by Roselle Lim
Readers will find themselves whisked away in this fantasy that takes them across the pond for an endless, enchanted adventure. Vanessa has an ancestral gift that lets her read tea leaves — but she doesn’t want it. It has caused her more grief than joy, mostly because she can’t help but blurt out people’s fortunes on the spot. Her parents are worried, so they enlist the help of a matchmaker from Shanghai. But Vanessa accidentally reads the matchmaker’s tea leaves, and when she sees the way she will die, she becomes determined to find a way to free herself from her gift once and for all.
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$22.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping
by Sangu Mandanna
This book is for the magical girls who will risk it all for their loved ones. Once upon a time, Sera was considered Britain’s most powerful witch — until she resurrected her aunt Jasmine, which cost her both her magic and her place in the magical guild. Now she helps her aunt run a cozy inn in Lancashire that’s home to a wide range of quirky magical creatures, including a sassy fox she’s come to call a friend. Sera has made peace with her quieter life, but when she stumbles across intel suggesting she might be able to restore her powers, the dream of becoming the enchantress she once was refuses to stay buried. With the help of an attractive historian, Sera sets out to reclaim what she lost and maybe discover something she never expected to find.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Girls of Dark Divine
by E. V. Woods
Imagine wanting to be a beautiful and successful ballet dancer, working your whole life to make it to the theatre stage, just to be cursed. That’s exactly what happens in this daunting tale of enchanting ballerinas who perform in New Kora, a legendary theatre where Emberlyn once dreamed of dazzling onlookers. Now that she’s finally part of the dance group, she and the other dancers find themselves under a dark spell controlled by an evil man named Malcolm, who pulls their strings like a puppetmaster. Emberlyn’s only hope may be a boy made of shadows who is mysteriously drawn to them — but will her plan to escape actually work?
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$13.99Preorder from:
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Homegrown Magic
by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos
Sometimes magic isn’t all about quick sparks and chants. Some magic needs time and patience to evolve, and Homegrown Magic proves that waiting for magic is worth it. Yael isn’t ready to embrace the responsibilities of their family’s business, so when they flee their own graduation, they stumble upon their former crush and childhood pal Margot, who is fighting to keep her family’s magical remedies business alive. Yael counts their blessings and decides to stick around, helping out in Margot’s magical greenhouse until the wind blows them elsewhere. But Margot has her own magical plans in the works. Between her plant powers and her crush back in her life, magic isn’t the only thing sparking between them.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Magician of Tiger Castle
by Louis Sachar
Readers will be taking on a cozy fantasy with some exhilarating stakes in this fairytale set in France. Anatole is a talented and gifted alchemist who spends his days concocting potions and remedies for the king and his court. When he’s commanded to create an elixir that will make the princess forget about the lowborn she’s in love with, things get complicated. But the meat and potatoes of this story lie in watching how the princess and her lowborn lover navigate the odds while Anatole tries to win his way back into the king’s good graces.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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A Magic Steeped in Poison
by Judy I. Lin
Read by Carolyn Kang
Political intrigue meets magical brews in this fantasy tale where a sister must enter a deadly competition to capitalize on her poisonous tea-making skills. Ning is already carrying the guilt of her gifts on her shoulders since it was her own tea that caused her mother’s death. Now that the same tea is threatening to take her sister’s life, Ning must travel to compete in a dangerous competition to try to save her. But this competition is more than meets the eye. Ning has to put her abilities to the test as she faces political corruption and dark magic to complete her journey.
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Everything She Does Is Magic
by Bridget Morrissey
For all the magical goth girlies who wished Halloween was every day, here’s a sapphic romance just for you. Darcy is a bright-eyed ball of sunshine, which is the total opposite of her parents, who live in Fableview, a cozy town that celebrates the spirit of fall festivities year-round. So when an authentic witch named Anya crosses paths with the extroverted, budding entrepreneurial Darcy, the pair form an odd but pleasant friendship, even if it’s for convenience. Darcy can help Anya fold into the local coven because she is human, and Anya needs a human — but fret not, the magic between these two sparks before either of them realizes it.
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$12.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Magic of Untamed Hearts
by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
In book three of the Wild Magic series, our magical girl, Sky Flores, has been existing as a ghost for several years. Like her enchanted sisters, Sky wandered into the woods and simply vanished, leaving others to think she disappeared without a trace. She doesn’t mind. Sky hasn’t had the best relationships with humans and finds solace in communicating with her furry pals instead. When she meets Adam, a determined journalist looking for his next big story, she agrees to let him share her story with the world. But the more Sky opens up to Adam, the closer the two become, and magic isn’t the only thing growing between them.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Undead Girl Gang
by Lily Anderson
Sometimes the best magic happens between besties. That’s the case with Riley and Mila, two best friends finding their own forms of entertainment in a small town. One of their favorite activities happens to be witchcraft. But when Mila learns that Riley and some mean girls from school died in an apparent suicide pact, she is in utter denial that her best friend would do such a thing. Driven by grief and determination, Mila puts her witchcraft skills to the test and resurrects Riley and the mean girls back to life. Now she has seven days to figure out what really happened before they’re gone for good.
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$9.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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Sundown Girls
by L.S. Stratton
Sometimes magic isn’t pretty. It’s dark, revengeful, and pungent. Naomi is famous for the wrong reasons. People recognize her as the former missing girl who was kidnapped as a baby and is now reunited with her biological family. But the reunification isn’t easy, and when the family decides to take a trip to a small town in Virginia, Naomi can’t help but notice a strange smell wafting through the air that nobody else seems to detect. She doesn’t want to draw more attention to herself than necessary, but then she starts seeing girls dressed in gowns summoning her for help. She can’t ignore them, and answering their call means exposing the town’s darkest secrets.
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$19.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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Marvel: What If . . . Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? (A Scarlet Witch & Spider-Man Story)
by Seanan McGuire and Marvel
Picture Wanda Maximoff, one of Marvel’s most powerful witches, being siblings with Peter Parker. That’s exactly what happens in this original and uncanny crossover starring two of Marvel’s most beloved characters. In this version, Wanda is already powerful, and Peter is her scrappy little brother who gets bitten by a radioactive spider. Together, they transform into superheroes in the most chaotic way possible. Dr. Strange tries to guide and teach her to wield her powers, but nothing prepares her for meeting Pietro, whose incredible speed and earth-shattering secrets turn Wanda’s world completely upside down.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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When We Were Birds
by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Let’s continue to follow the magic to the Caribbean in Trinidad, where the St. Bernard women are unlike any other women in their country. For generations, they have lived in the same house on top of the hill where their ancestors were buried. Yejide is now the generational chosen one tasked with leading the souls of her country through an afterlife passage. Across town, a young man named Darwin is forced to take a job as a grave digger to help his ailing but deeply religious mother, who warns him to be cautious around the dead. When their paths cross, magic happens in the darkest and most charming ways.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Marigold Mind Laundry
by Jungeun Yun
When we talk about magical girls, it doesn’t have to be literal magic — sometimes a little magical realism goes a long way. Picture a regular laundromat sitting proudly on a hill with the promise that it will wash away all of your grief and pain. That is exactly what Jieun’s laundry promises to do, and she has five customers looking to fold away their grievances. From a customer who is being bullied to a social media influencer being swallowed by the pressures of her career, each story is quirky, heartwarming, and wholly its own. While Jieun’s laundromat sits on the border of reality, it invites readers to fully immerse themselves in the beloved Korean genre known as K-healing.
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$22.00Buy from Other Retailers:
