adds everything to goodreads
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Old Kingdom/Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
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@Tinker I second The Night Circus as Magiqvers-y - magiq theory, experimentation, and practice; suspicion and intrigue; elaborate characters, in-depth world building, mysteries! I’m so excited to get my hand on her next one!
The Caraval series has extremely detailed characters and world building, as well. It takes a particularly focused look at the mechanics of different functions of magiq, as well as how magiq can backfire when it isn’t clearly understood.
@TheMadHare Wait… Myst as in the mid-90’s computer game that took an hour to boot up and crashed when it tried to load certain puzzles? There are real books?
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A friend of mine read them once upon a time, definitely actual things!
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Absolutely beautifully written books, @Hekate! The games weren’t so clear with a narrative, but the books are a precursor to the PC puzzler most people know.
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YESSSSSSSS
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I believe it was called The Midnighters or something similar. About a group of people who find they are born with the ability to enter the secret 13th hour of the day where primeval forces dwell and get dragged into a fight for their lives and the world as a whole while also trying to decipher the secrets left by the first midnighters way back when… it was good but I haven’t read it in years. Definitely written for the YA genre if that bothers some people.
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I just finished reading The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. It has so much in common with the Briarverse but so much different too.
(Minimal spoilers don’t worry)
The story is about a girl named Alice researching her grandmother. He mother never spoke about her, other than to say she wrote a book of fairytales. The grandmother is wierd and mysterious and it’s unclear if she wrote the stories or collected them from some obscure culture. And then Alice’s mother goes missing and it becomes a rescue mission. The characters in the book are real, and they’ve taken her mother back into their world - the world her grandmother wrote about in her book of fairytales. Now she has so follow them into it to get her back, and finally understand the truth about her grandmother.
The elements it has in common with the Briarverse (which may be what drew me in in the first place) are
New York
Obscure books
Isekai
Blurring between fiction and reality
Overall 10/10 but do not read it at the same time as BoB because the common themes and elements may leave you confused (I made this mistake and had to conciously keep the stories seperate)
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anything sanderson is prime cut fantasy literature
I just ordered/pre-ordered the whole words of radiance series because I loved it so much that I needed to own them
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Oooooo also Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw! It’s a little bit spooky, but the magic is very subtle and cool.
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Before discovering the first Monarch Papers book, I was reading The Blood Race by indie author K.A. Emmons. There are elements similar to the Briarverse such as the world having its own forms of magic (generally hidden from the mundane world since who-knows-how-long), people born with magical gifts, and another dimension parallel to our own where they can harness their abilities under the guidance of Sensei: a man who knows about the future and works towards preserving the balance between worlds. ( 
)
And of course, part of that means the two worlds must co-exist in harmony by having as little impact as possible on each other. Plus said dimension exists outside of time, so you’d have two girls the same age born in two vastly different periods of history, who stopped aging externally once they got into the other world (from what I’ve gathered at least).
Now it’s definitely a young adult coming-of-age story, and it shows through the main character- a college student who really acts like it (before the character developement kicks in at least). Fair warning if that’s not your kind of thing!
It’s a triology+a prequel and I’ve only read book one for now, but I believe this one is worth checking out if you like YA, urban fantasy and stories about self-discovery. Plus you know, good indie authors! We need more of those!
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Not sure if this has been added here yet, but if not I can’t recommend it enough
Ten Thousand Doors of January shares in our penchant for words, storytelling, and doors leading to mysterious netherworlds. The book is like an ode to the power of storytelling. Out of all the books I read for my thesis project this was the only one I finished in a matter of days.
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I’ve been meaning to read that one forever!! I have a digital copy on my iPad, but since it’s not a physical book I can leave out on my nightstand to remind myself to read it, I keep forgetting about it. I’ve heard nothing but incredible things, though!
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This has become such a rabbit hole for books. It’s amazing. 
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Is anyone else super excited about Susanna Clarke’s new book? it looks amazing 
very magiq.
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