Books like “The Library at Mount Char”

What to read after “The Library at Mount Char” by Scott Hawkins: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Seth Dickinson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, Baru Cormorant hides her hatred and joins the imperial civil service. Sent to a restless province as an accountant, she works to rise high enough to free her people, even as her choices cost her the woman she loves.
2
The Shadow of the Torturer
Gene Wolfe · 1980
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Severian is raised in the guild of torturers and exiled from his city after an act of mercy. He narrates his own travels across a dying world, but his perfect memory is perfect only in his own account, and the past conceals far more than he admits.
3
Between Two Fires
Christopher Buehlman · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
In 1348, as the Black Death empties France, a disgraced knight finds an orphan girl in a dead village. She says the plague is only part of a larger war between heaven and hell, and persuades him to carry her across a ruined land toward Avignon.
4
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
N. K. Jemisin · 2010
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Yeine Darr is summoned from her northern homeland to the city of Sky, where she is named an heir to the Arameri throne after her mother's death. As she learns the rules of a court that keeps gods as servants, she finds that the contest for the succession is also a trap.
5
The Unspoken Name
A. K. Larkwood · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Csorwe was raised to be a sacrifice to the Unspoken One, until the wizard Belthandros offers her another life. Trained as his assassin and servant, she is sent to find a lost city and a door between worlds, and begins to wonder whether her second life is any freer than her first.
6
The Way of Shadows
Brent Weeks · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Azoth survives as a guild rat in the slums of Cenaria, where life is cheap. To escape he apprentices himself to Durzo Blint, the city's most feared assassin, and must abandon his old name and life to become Kylar Stern, a killer schooled in dangerous magic and politics.
7
Sabriel
Garth Nix · 1995
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
Sabriel has grown up safely across the Wall, far from the Old Kingdom and its dead. When her father, the Abhorsen, vanishes, she crosses into a land where the dead walk and takes up his bells and his duty. With a free magic creature and a trapped soldier, she sets out to find him.
8
Empire of the Vampire
Jay Kristoff · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
For nearly thirty years the sun has not risen, and vampires have built an empire on the ruins of humanity. Gabriel de León, last of a holy brotherhood sworn to hunt them, is imprisoned and forced to tell the story of his life and the secret he has guarded.
9
Nevernight
Jay Kristoff · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Mia Corvere survives the murder of her family and is taken in by the Red Church, a hidden order of assassins. To earn her place she must pass brutal trials, while her shadow companion and her hunger for revenge push her toward a choice she may not survive.
10
The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
New York, 1924. Tommy Tester runs small errands and plays guitar for money, one of the few Black men willing to do business with a sorcerer. Hired by a strange wealthy man in Flatbush, he is drawn toward the Sleeping King and the Great Old Ones, and chooses what kind of power he is willing to serve.
11
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Brandon Sanderson · 2006
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
In an ash-covered empire, a street thief is trained in allomancy, the magic of burning metals. She joins a crew planning to overthrow the immortal Lord Ruler, though the prophecy around her may be a lie.
12
The Blacktongue Thief
Christopher Buehlman · 2021
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Morally Grey Character
Kinch Na Shannack owes his guild of thieves more than he can ever pay. To settle the debt he tags along with a scarred knight on a journey to find women taken by goblins, through a world of old wars, hungry gods and creatures that would happily eat a thief.