What to read after “The Invisible Library” by Genevieve Cogman: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
In an alternate 1878, Karen Memery works at a brothel in Seattle. When a badly injured woman arrives with a ruthless man on her trail, Karen is pulled into a hunt for a serial killer, a corrupt election and a mess of dangerous inventions.
In an alternate 1914, the Great Powers fight with two kinds of technology: the Clankers' diesel walkers and the Darwinists' genetically engineered beasts. Prince Alek, on the run after his parents' assassination, and Deryn, a girl disguised as a boy in the British airship service, meet when the whale airship Leviathan crashes in the Alps.
Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a luxury airship that crosses the oceans. When a pirate raid and a storm leave the ship stranded on a remote island, Matt and a rich passenger's daughter, Kate, search for the flying creatures her grandfather claimed to have seen before the pirates close in.
In the East, the queen Sabran must keep the line of Berethnet alive to hold back the Nameless One. In the West, the mage Ead secretly guards her, and in the South a dragon rider's daughter grows up in hiding.
A traveller from the future changes 1840 and leaves behind an England divided between steam-driven Technologists and Eugenicists who reshape living things. Sir Richard Burton, an explorer whose reputation has been ruined, is sent to investigate the attacks of Spring-Heeled Jack and other strange events in London's East End.
In Victorian London, Tessa Gray is kidnapped by the Dark Sisters and learns she is a shape-shifter. Rescued by the Shadowhunters, she is drawn into a fight against a powerful enemy while navigating her feelings for two brothers, Will and Jem.
Asha is the Iskari, a dragon slayer raised by a harsh king to atone for the night her mother died. Feared by her own people, she takes comfort in forbidden old stories and in a kind slave named Torwin. When the dragons offer her another way, everything she was raised to believe starts to break apart.
In an electric-powered Victorian London, Dr. Eliza Jekyll works as a crime-scene investigator while hiding Lizzie Hyde, the reckless second self freed by her father's elixir. A killer is mutilating women across the city, and the case pulls Eliza into London's magical underworld as she tries to keep her secret and control Lizzie.
Thousands of years after a war destroyed civilization, cities move on giant wheels and hunt smaller towns for fuel and parts. Apprentice historian Tom Natsworthy is thrown out of London after a girl named Hester tries to kill a powerful official, and the two must survive the wastelands together while a larger scheme takes shape inside the city.
After five years apart, old friends meet again at the Inn of the Last Home as war spreads across Krynn. A plain staff, a cleric without faith and rumours of dragons pull them into a quest to recover the Disks of Mishakal, the lost teachings of the true gods, and to stand against the Dragon Highlords.
Bilbo Baggins likes his quiet, well-stocked hole. Then the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves arrive and sweep him off on a journey to reclaim a treasure from the dragon Smaug, and he finds a courage and a ring he never expected.
After the Iron Duke broke the Horde's hold on England, Rhys Trahaearn became a hero, a merchant and a man used to taking what he wants. Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth has Horde blood and little place in London society, but a body dropped on Rhys's doorstep forces them to work together against a plot aimed at everyone in England.
Lessa hides as a drudge in the hold that was stolen from her family, waiting for a chance to reclaim it. When dragonriders visit, she impresses the golden queen Ramoth and becomes a weyrwoman. With deadly Thread falling from the sky, she and the rider F'lar must find a way to save their world.
Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the mountains, and it hatches into a dragon. Chosen as her rider, he is hunted by the king's servants and must leave his village to learn the ways of the Dragon Riders and join the rebels.
Princess Shiori would rather sneak out than learn magic, until a stepmother's spell turns her six brothers into cranes and steals her voice. Silent and alone, she must travel a dangerous empire to break the curse, aided by a boy with secrets of his own.
Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is sent to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy, where proper young ladies learn dance, dress and etiquette, and also lock-picking, information gathering and the quieter arts of espionage. A stolen prototype and a plot against a schoolmate pull Sophronia and her new friends into danger.
Violet has survived her first year at Basgiath War College, but the answers she sought only revealed a larger lie. As war closes in, she must decide whom to trust, including a man she loves and cannot fully believe, while the school hides truths even its riders are forbidden to know.
Violet Sorrengail expected a quiet life among books, not the deadly rider quadrant where cadets die and dragons choose their own riders. Thin and untrained, she survives on wit alone. Her greatest threat is Xaden Riorson, a ruthless wing leader whose attention she never wanted.
The Omehi have fought an unwinnable war for generations, where a rare few can call dragons or transform into killing giants. Giftless Tau plans to escape, until betrayal murders those he loves. To avenge them he trains to become the greatest swordsman alive, whatever it costs.
Pia steals an ancient coin and becomes the target of Dragos, the most powerful dragon alive. When he catches her, he recognises her at once as something rare and precious: his mate. Pia carries secrets of her own, and powerful enemies who would gladly see them both dead.
Kell is one of the last Antari, magicians who can travel between four parallel Londons: Red, Grey, White and the lost Black. After a smuggling exchange goes wrong, he flees into Grey London and meets Lila Bard, a thief who talks her way into his journey. Together they must keep a dangerous object from falling into the wrong hands.
An early mining machine called the Boneshaker shattered Seattle and released a gas that kills people or turns the dead into rotters. Sixteen years later, Briar Wilkes enters the walled ruins after her son Zeke, who hopes to clear his father's name, goes in. She finds the ruined city ruled by a masked inventor and his followers.
Edinburgh, 1844. Aileana Kameron hides a secret: she hunts the fae who murdered her mother, using her own inventions and a training she never speaks of. Her closest ally is Kiaran, a fae warrior who teaches her to fight, and the trail she follows leads toward something far older and more dangerous than she expected.
Will Parry, a boy on the run after a violent encounter, crosses through a window into another world and meets Lyra Silvertongue. Together they search for Will's missing father and for the source of the mysterious Dust, while a knife that can cut openings between universes draws them into a war far larger than either of them.
Start with “Karen Memory”, “Leviathan”, “Airborn”: they are the closest to “The Invisible Library” 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 Invisible Library” these are Parallel Worlds, Secret Society, Quest), 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 “Karen Memory”, “Leviathan”, “Airborn”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
