Surely you’re not tired of book gifting suggestions. Good, because we’re not tired of giving them, and honestly, what better present could there be in a year when no one is going anywhere than a journey into the fantastic?

These are some of our favorites, either published or discovered this year. We’ve reviewed most of them elsewhere on the site so we’ll refresh your memory with short blurbs on this guide, but feel free to click on the links if you want more in-depth info.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads)

Yadriel’s journey to becoming a full-fledged brujo definitely makes our top 10 for 2020. This young adult novel about a trans teen searching for acceptance in his conservative, traditional, Latinx community is moving, funny, brash, harsh, and romantic by turns, managing to capture so many different aspects of not only Yadriel’s life but also those of his ride-or-die best friend and cousin Maritza and the ghost he doesn’t mean to conjure but ends up attached to (in more ways the one). Nor is that ghost, the incarnation of one Julian Diaz’s soul, what anyone, even Julian, expects it to be. Cemetery Boys is marked for the YA shelf, but I, a whole-ass adult, read it in two sittings, and what are labels anyway? A good book is a good book, and this one is really good; I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase it for any urban fantasy, LGBTQIA+, or paranormal romance fan on my list, nor should you.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Margaret K. McElderry Books)

Just when you think no one can possibly do anything new with the King Arthur mythos, Tracy Deonn comes along and breaks through the portcullis, destroys the stodgy old castle, slays a couple dragons, and then kicks ye olde white dudes in the teeth just for fun.

Hell yeah.

After her mother’s death, Bree Matthews decides to finish high school at a UNC residential program, starting fresh somewhere tragedy isn’t dogging her every step. Once there, however, Bree quickly finds herself mixed up in some serious supernatural shenanigans, which lead to her stumbling on a secret society that calls itself The Legendborn.

Members claim to be the descendants of Arthur and his Knights, trained from birth to protect the world from demons. As Bree grows closer to some of the group’s members, she discovers she shares their magical heritage and a much older one as well – one that encourages her to kick back at not only the courtly facade of the Legendborn but also the myth of the genteel South. No taboo is safe, and that’s the way we like it.

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall (Viking)

Legend says that once a year, a ghost road opens in the forest near Briar Glen and Lucy Gallows beckons the teenagers in town down it to play her game. If you win, you go free. If not…

Sara’s sister disappeared on the day designated for the ghost road one year ago. Everyone says she ran off with her boyfriend, but Sara doesn’t believe it, and she’s spent the whole year waiting for Lucy to give her the chance to find Becca. Sara’s friends, though skeptical, agree to meet Sara in the forest just in case the legends are true.

They are. And the truth of the ghost road is more horrifying than any of them could have imagined.

Rules for Vanishing is one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read. My poor innocent cat happened to run by the door to my room while I was absorbed one night when I wasn’t expecting it; I screamed and threw my e-reader at him. I am not even kidding. Have a horror lover in your life? This book. Right here.

Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn 

Short stories are great for the holiday season because you can squeeze one or two in between tasks or as a break from the… intensity of children on vacation and inability to leave the house (especially if they’ve been homeschooling and now don’t have even that to distract them).

Fair warning: this is an intense collection – one that explores not only the conflict between tradition and rebellion but also the intense hurt and revelation that occur when expectation cracks and the “other” begins to show through, be it the color of one’s skin, what she dares to write (or that she writes at all), or where she has made a place for herself in the world.

It is also a wonderful collection. It’s a collection of risk and of women who took them because they needed more and gifted us with their stories.

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart (Orbit)

Moving islands! Bone shard constructs! Baby water dragons! Elemental wizards! Queer rep that isn’t A Thing! Mastermind girls! Non-Western based fantasy worlds!

I may have liked this book a lot. Also, I will die for said elemental wizard and his baby water dragon.

Not every author can pull off a novel that’s written in different voices nor one that tells three different stories that intertwine but remain very much their own.  Stewart can and has. Extra points for doing so without falling back on characters who are tropes or paragons. Three cheers for moral ambiguity, and three more for women who manage it without being cackling caricatures.

I can’t wait for the next installment. Make sure the fantasy lovers in your life aren’t behind.

The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards (Pyr)

This first book in the Tarot Sequence came out in 2018, and I have no idea how I missed it because it is so in my wheelhouse that I should have smashed my shins on it getting out of bed.

I suppose, in a way, it’s good to have come late to the party, however, because I inhaled both The Last Sun and The Hanged Man in three days and would have been very sad had I not known Edwards had been contracted for books 3 and 4 (that announcement was how I was made aware of the series).

Rune St. John, last scion of House Sun, avoids the Atlantean court as much as possible. Of course, just when he thinks he’s gotten out… etc etc. This time, Lady Judgment has hired him to find her missing son Addam who, it seems, is being held prisoner on New Atlantis. Should be easy enough with the help of his bodyguard and Companion Brand, right?

Please, y’all know me better than that.

I could gush about this series for hours, but I don’t want to give too much away, so trust me when I say it’s peak urban fantasy, crazy fun, and, at the same time, deals with some serious issues, such as sexual assault, honestly but with great care and sensitivity. There are some graphic flashback scenes, however, so please consider that before you purchase or read. There is also excellent LGBTQIA+ rep, including the fact that Rune and Brand are psychically linked gay best friends who don’t want to fuck (the audacity).

Where The Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (translated by Polly Barton) (Soft Skull Press)

In Aoko Matsuda’s collection of adapted folktales, women are reminded that their bodies are objects of public consumption from the moment of birth until they die. In the afterlife, however, well, that’s a different story entirely. In the afterlife, women have power. In the afterlife, they are empowered.

Be afraid, men. Be very afraid.

Quick additional note: often, when I read books in translation, I feel as though there’s something fundamental missing from the experience. Not so with Where the Wild Ladies Are. I don’t, of course, know for certain – my Duolingo Japanese lessons aren’t going to get me that far, but perhaps someday…

White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton (Blackstone Publishing)

In the words of Kacey Musgraves:

Yeah, family is funny, they’ll ask you for money
Even though they know you ain’t got no money
They show up at Christmas, get up in your business
They might not be fancy, but family is family

Adam Binder’s family sucks for a great many reasons, not least of which are homophobia and the fact that they shoved him in a mental health facility despite knowing damn well Adam’s visions were of another nature entirely. But when his search for magical artifacts, and his missing father, leads Adam to Denver, where he finds his sister-in-law enslaved to an eldritch spirit, Adam agrees to help because, in the end, family is family.

Even if they get you killed.

I mean, at least Adam got to meet Vic in the deal.

Too bad about the elves.

See? You can vacation on that staycation and so can your loved ones. Take a look, it’s in a book.

Happy Holidays.