What to read after “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” by Patricia A. McKillip: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Lou is a witch hiding in a city where the church hunts her kind. Reid is a captain of the witch hunters and a devoted servant of that church. When a reckless act binds them in a union neither wanted, both must choose between faith, duty and a feeling they were raised to despise.
Every ten years the wizard known as the Dragon takes one girl from Agnieszka's valley. When he chooses her instead of her best friend, she is carried to his tower, where she discovers a talent for magic, a growing bond with her cold teacher and the corrupted Wood that threatens them all.
Witch sisters Emilia and Vittoria live secretly among humans, hiding from those who would kill them. When Vittoria is found murdered, Emilia swears to hunt down the killer, even using forbidden magic. Her search brings her to Wrath, a prince of Hell she cannot trust and cannot look away from.
With the witch hunts still burning, Lou and Reid flee and try to gather allies against the church. They bargain with people they do not trust and hide a bond more dangerous than any enemy. As the threat grows, Lou senses that the darkness inside her is not as harmless as she believed.
Mika Moon hides her magic and never lets herself grow close to anyone. When a strange house asks her to teach three young witches, she meets a prickly librarian, a house full of secrets and the possibility of a place that finally feels like home.
Cursed by a witch into an old woman's body, Sophie takes shelter in the moving castle of the vain wizard Howl. Amid a fire demon, a scarecrow and Howl's tangled contracts, she finds a home and a way to break her own spell.
Rune is the last of her kind, hiding her magic while playing the flirtatious socialite. By day she courts the witch hunters; by night she works against them. Then she sets her sights on Gideon, a loyal hunter with a secret of his own, and the lies between them grow harder to keep.
Marra, a shy convent-raised princess, learns that no one will save her sister from a cruel prince -- so she decides to do it herself. Three impossible tasks, a gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother and a demon-possessed chicken later, she sets out to stop a king.
Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, calls up an enchanted manuscript that every creature in Oxford wants. When the vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont offers his help, their alliance defies the laws that keep witches, vampires, and daemons apart.
Yadriel, a trans boy, wants his traditional family to accept him as a brujo. When his initiation goes wrong he raises the ghost of a murdered classmate, and together they search for answers while Yadriel hides the truth from everyone he loves.
Angrboda is a witch burned three times for refusing to reveal the future. She hides in a forest and builds a quiet life until Loki finds her, and their children draw the eyes of the gods. A prophecy turns every small happiness into a countdown.
Each year the people of a village leave a baby in the forest for the witch they fear, and each year the witch Xan carries the child to a safe home. When she accidentally gives one baby moonlight instead of starlight, the girl gains dangerous magic, and Xan decides to raise her. Luna grows up among a swamp monster and a dragon, unaware of the mother who still mourns her.
A young man promises to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he loves and crosses a wall into the land of Faerie. There he finds the star is a woman pursued by witches and princes, and his errand becomes a journey of its own.
Catalia works as a soothsayer in a travelling circus, hiding the power that once made her a pawn of the gods. Griffin, a warlord desperate to save his people, recognises her magic and carries her off to his kingdom. On the long road there, loathing turns into a bond neither of them wanted and neither can deny.
Sisters Sally and Gillian Owens grow up in a small Massachusetts town under a family curse that poisons love. Sally swears off magic while Gillian chases trouble, until a dead boyfriend on Gillian's doorstep drags them both back into the spells they tried to leave behind.
For years the invading Jure'lia have been beaten back, but the cost has drained the empire. Tormalin, an exiled Eboran, and Vintage, a scholar, are hunting the truth about the fell-witches when they find Noon, a woman carrying a power the Jure'lia have waited centuries to claim.
In a city that has conquered and enslaved a neighbouring people, the general's daughter Kestrel buys a defiant young slave named Arin on a whim. He is far more than he seems, and as rebellion stirs in the streets, Kestrel finds her loyalty to her family pulling against everything she feels for him.
Oraya is a human adopted by the vampire king and has always been an outsider at his court. To win protection she enters the Kejari, a tournament that kills most of its competitors, and forms an uneasy alliance with Raihn, a rival vampire she cannot trust and should not love.
Damen, prince of Akielos, is betrayed by his half-brother and sent to Vere as a slave and a gift to Prince Laurent, the heir he once fought. Kept in the dark about the other's plans, the two enemies have to survive a court of shifting alliances and old hatred.
Évike is the only woman in her pagan village with no magic, and her people treat her as an outcast. When the kingdom's holy warriors demand a sacrifice, she is handed to their one-eyed captain, a monster-hunter her village hates. To survive the winter forest, the two must rely on each other despite everything between them.
Eelyn is a warrior of the Aska clan, raised to fight the rival Riki in a war older than anyone remembers. Captured and forced to live among her enemies, she begins to see them as people, and finds herself drawn to a young man she was always taught to kill.
Jack is summoned home to Cadence, an island of two peoples, to find girls who have vanished without trace. He must work with Adaira, the laird's daughter, and call on the spirits he abandoned. On an island steeped in old magic, old grudges and new feelings refuse to stay buried.
Lara is raised as a weapon and married to the king of a rival realm so she can open its fabled bridge to invasion. She means to see her husband as nothing but the enemy she must destroy. The more she learns of Aren and his people, the harder the choice between her old home and her new one becomes.
Feyre survived Amarantha's trials, but the cost has left her breaking. On her wedding day Rhysand takes her to the Night Court, where she learns to use her new powers while a war with Hybern gathers. Trust grows between them as old loyalties and a dangerous bargain pull her in different directions.
What should I read after “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld”?
Start with “Serpent & Dove”, “Uprooted”, “Kingdom of the Wicked”: they are the closest to “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” these are Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Revenge), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “Serpent & Dove”, “Uprooted”, “Kingdom of the Wicked”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
