Books like “Vita Nostra”

What to read after “Vita Nostra” by Marina Dyachenko and Sergey Dyachenko: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “Vita Nostra”

Another favorite book?

Or start with a well-known book

1
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia” and “Dark Fantasy”
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, where students learn spells while monsters pick them off between lessons. Galadriel 'El' Higgins, feared for the dark power a prophecy says she will wield, has to survive to graduation and the hungry things waiting in the dark.
2
Vicious
V. E. Schwab · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
Victor and Eli are brilliant, lonely college roommates who turn a theory about near-death experiences into something real. Ten years later Victor leaves prison to hunt the friend who became his enemy, each armed with dangerous powers and neither willing to stop.
3
The Magicians
Lev Grossman · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia” and “Dark Fantasy”
Quentin Coldwater is recruited to a hidden college of magic in upstate New York, where years of study leave him restless and still searching for meaning. When he and his friends find a way into Fillory, the enchanted land from his childhood books, its dangers turn out to be very real.
4
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Claire North · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Time Loop
- Philosophical
Harry August dies and is born again in the same English country house in 1919, remembering everything. Each life draws him into a hidden network of people who live their years over and over, until another of their kind begins to unravel time itself and asks him to stop it.
5
Replay
Ken Grimwood · 1986
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Time Loop
- Philosophical
Jeff Winston dies in 1988 and wakes in 1963 in his eighteen-year-old body, with every memory of the years ahead intact. He lives that span over and over, each replay starting later, and slowly realises he is not the only one caught in the loop.
6
The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
Six talented magicians are invited to the Alexandrian Society, a secret fellowship that guards lost knowledge. Only five can be initiated at the end of the year, and the recruits must decide how far they will go to keep their places, and whom they are willing to betray.
7
The Darkness That Comes Before
R. Scott Bakker · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy” and “Philosophical”
- Dark Fantasy
- Philosophical
A holy war gathers against the distant Fanim, and the sorcerer Drusas Achamian is sent to find the hidden hand behind it. Into the crusade walks Kellhus, a monk trained to read and master every mind he meets.
8
Life After Life
Kate Atkinson · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
Ursula Todd is born in 1910 and dies, then is born again in the same English house. Over many lives she survives accidents, war and bad choices, and begins to sense that her repetitions might be leading somewhere.
9
All You Need Is Kill
Hiroshi Sakurazaka · 2004
From the same world: “Time Loop”
- Time Loop
A young soldier is thrown into a war against alien Mimics and killed on his first day of battle, then wakes on the morning before, again and again. Each death teaches him something, and he must relive the same fight until he can survive long enough to find a way out.
10
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Seth Dickinson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
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.
11
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
N. K. Jemisin · 2010
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
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.
12
The Way of Shadows
Brent Weeks · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Coming of Age
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.