Books like “The Night Circus”

What to read after “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Practical Magic
Alice Hoffman · 1995
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
- Star-Crossed Lovers
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.
2
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V. E. Schwab · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
In 1714 France, Addie LaRue makes a desperate deal to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. For three hundred years she drifts through history unseen, until in a New York bookshop a young man tells her that he remembers her.
3
The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Henry has a genetic condition that pulls him through time without warning, so his life with the artist Clare never runs in the usual order. They meet again and again at different ages, and their love must hold through long absences and a future neither of them can change.
4
Assistant to the Villain
Hannah Nicole Maehrer · 2023
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Slow Burn
Out of work and desperate, Evie Sage takes a job as assistant to the kingdom's most feared villain. Her boss is grumpy, the work is murder, and someone close to him is betraying him. Evie's sunny good cheer may be exactly what his gloomy fortress was missing.
5
The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
After her mother's death, Leigh travels to Taiwan to meet grandparents she has never known, convinced her mother has returned as a red bird. Grief, a family silence and a friendship she left behind come together as she learns what she can and cannot hold on to.
6
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Leslye Walton · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
Born with wings she cannot fly, Ava grows up in a Seattle house where the women carry a long history of love that ends badly. As she longs to be an ordinary girl, her family's sorrows keep shaping everyone around her.
7
Stardust
Neil Gaiman · 1999
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Star-Crossed Lovers
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.
8
A Monster Calls
Patrick Ness · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
Thirteen-year-old Conor is visited at night by a monster shaped like a yew tree, who promises to tell him three stories in exchange for a fourth, one Conor must tell himself. Meanwhile his mother is ill, and Conor struggles with grief, anger and guilt.
9
The Cat Who Saved Books
Sosuke Natsukawa · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
A grieving schoolboy meets a talking tabby who leads him through a labyrinth of libraries to rescue books from careless owners. Each strange trial nudges him back toward the world and the people he has shut out.
10
The Last Unicorn
Peter S. Beagle · 1968
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
A unicorn learns she may be the last of her kind and leaves her forest to search for the others. With a bumbling magician and a sharp-tongued woman she travels to a king's castle, where love and loss wait at the end of the road.
11
The House in the Cerulean Sea
T. J. Klune · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
Linus Baker, a lonely case worker, is sent to a remote island orphanage to check on six unusual children and their mysterious master, Arthur Parnassus. What begins as a routine inspection slowly becomes a choice between following the rules and protecting a family he comes to love.
12
Caraval
Stephanie Garber · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Whimsical”
- Whimsical
- Slow Burn
Scarlett has dreamed of Caraval, a magical game held once a year, as a way to escape her island home. When her sister is taken by the game's master, Scarlett must enter the show to find her, where nothing is real and the price of losing is high.