October is a month that is full of magic. And to go along with it, we have a list of books that are classified as magical realism!
So what is magical realism?
Magical realism is a literary style that integrates fantastic, mythical, or supernatural elements into an otherwise realistic, modern, and mundane setting. Unlike pure fantasy, the magical elements are presented as a normal part of the world, and characters accept them without question or surprise. The genre is most famously associated with Latin American authors but has been used by writers across the globe.
This genre blends magic into everyday life which invites you to reconsider your perceptions and look for a sense of wonder in the everyday world. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when it is imbued with a sense of awe. The magical elements often have roots in cultural myths, folklore, and indigenous belief systems, epecially from Latin America where the genre originated.
Gold Diggers
Author:
Sanjena Sathian
Genre:
Fantasy
Summary:
A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is funny and smart but struggles to bear the weight of expectations of his family and their Asian American enclave. He tries to want their version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.
When he discovers that Anita is the beneficiary of an ancient, alchemical potion made from stolen gold—a “lemonade” that harnesses the ambition of the gold’s original owner—Neil sees his chance to get ahead. But events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart. Years later in the Bay Area, Neil still bristles against his community’s expectations—and finds he might need one more hit of that lemonade, no matter the cost.
The Book of Doors
Author:
Gareth Brown
Genre:
Fantasy/Time Travel
Summary:
In Gareth Brown’s novel The Book of Doors, ordinary bookseller Cassie Andrews inherits a mysterious book from a deceased customer. The book, filled with strange symbols, possesses the incredible power to turn any door into a portal to anywhere in the world—or even the past. Initially, Cassie and her roommate Izzy delight in the wonder of traveling, but they soon discover that other magical books exist, and dangerous collectors are hunting them.
The ruthless “book hunters,” and a particularly sinister woman, will kill to possess the books and their powers. To protect herself and the magical tome, Cassie must join forces with the enigmatic Drummond Fox, a librarian guarding his own collection of powerful volumes. As Cassie navigates this hidden, treacherous world of magic, she and her allies must confront the dark forces that will stop at nothing to gain control.
The Lost Story
Author:
Meg Shaffer
Genre:
Fantasy/Mystery
Summary:
As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.
Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.
Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.
Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Author:
Emma Törzs
Genre:
Fantasy
Summary:
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs follows two estranged half-sisters, Joanna and Esther, who grew up guarding their family’s magical library. After a decade of separation, they are forced to reunite when their father is mysteriously killed by one of his own books.
Joanna has remained at their Vermont home, isolated by the magical wards she maintains to protect the dangerous volumes. Her sister Esther, who is immune to magic, has spent her life traveling to escape a powerful curse that killed their mother.
When their father’s death reveals that the curse is still active and that the family’s magical legacy is bigger and more dangerous than they ever knew, the sisters must work together. Along with Nicholas, a young “Scribe” who can write magic with his own blood, they unravel secrets spanning centuries and continents while staying ahead of an organization that wants the Kalotay’s magic for themselves.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Author:
V.E. Schwab
Genre:
Fantasy/Romance
Summary:
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a young French woman in 1714 who makes a Faustian bargain for freedom and immortality. As a consequence, she is cursed to be instantly forgotten by everyone she meets. For 300 years, she lives an invisible life, wandering the world and witnessing history, always remembered only by the dark god who visits annually to try and claim her soul. She finds small ways to leave her mark on the world, inspiring artists and leaving ideas behind.
Everything changes in 2014, when she meets Henry Strauss, a bookseller in New York who is the first person to remember her name. This extraordinary connection reveals a mystery about Henry and sets Addie on a path that redefines her long, solitary existence. The novel weaves together Addie’s centuries-long past with her present-day relationship with Henry, exploring themes of love, memory, and the universal desire to leave a mark.
The Lost Apothecary
Author:
Sarah Penner
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
The Lost Apothecary intertwines the stories of three women across centuries. In 1791 London, Nella runs a secret apothecary, selling poisons to women who want to escape abusive men, while observing two rules: never harm another woman and document every transaction. Her secret is threatened when she takes on a twelve-year-old girl named Eliza, leading to a mistake with far-reaching consequences. In the present day, Caroline Parcewell, reeling from her husband’s infidelity, discovers a vial in the River Thames, connecting her to the unsolved “apothecary murders” and triggering a quest that will collide her life with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist.
The Lost Bookshop
Author:
Evie Woods
Genre:
Fantasy/Historical Fiction
Summary:
In the 1920s, Opaline Carlisle rebels against an arranged marriage to become a rare book dealer in Paris and Dublin. In the present day, Martha flees an abusive marriage and becomes a housekeeper for an eccentric Dublin actress. Meanwhile, PhD student Henry arrives in Dublin searching for a fabled lost bookshop and an unpublished Emily Brontë manuscript connected to Opaline.
The lives of Martha, Henry, and Opaline converge through the magical, vanishing bookshop that appears to those in need. As Martha and Henry uncover Opaline’s secrets, they also learn to find their own voices and write new chapters for their lives. The story weaves together historical details with magical realism to explore themes of identity, healing from trauma, and the enduring connection books can forge across generations.
Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders
Author:
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Genre:
Non-fiction/Memoir
Summary:
Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders is a collection by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal that uses pop culture, like music and fantasy, to explore her personal history and the effects of migration, borders, and violence. The essays blend memoir and cultural criticism to reconstruct experiences that are too painful to remember directly. By archiving her life through the lens of fantasy, Villarreal re-centers painful truths and finds new ways to understand her identity as the daughter of Mexican immigrants. The book uses these elements to build a new way of remembering and telling stories, showing how fantasy can be a tool for processing grief and mapping futures.
The Measure
Author:
Nikki Erlick
Genre:
Science Fiction
Summary:
Nikki Erlick’s novel The Measure explores a world where every adult receives a mysterious box containing a string that reveals the exact length of their life. This singular event upends society, forcing individuals and governments to confront profound questions about fate, mortality, and the value of a life.
The narrative follows an interconnected group of eight people as they grapple with the shocking choice of whether to open their boxes. Some embrace the knowledge, using it to seize every moment, while others live in denial, trying to ignore their fate. Through their intertwined stories of love, loss, and difficult choices, the book examines how this information affects relationships and creates new societal divisions, and ultimately suggests that a life’s worth is measured not by its length, but by how it is lived.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe
Author:
Heather Webber
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Summary:
In the Alabama town of Wicklow, Anna Kate inherits her grandmother’s café and must run it for two months to claim her inheritance. Though planning to return to medical school, she is drawn into the local folklore surrounding the café’s legendary pies, which are believed to deliver messages in dreams from the dead.
As she bakes, Anna Kate uncovers the secrets behind a decades-old family feud and the mysterious car accident that took her father’s life. Her path crosses with Natalie, a local woman also struggling with grief, and the two women, unknowingly related, begin a process of reconciliation. Ultimately, Anna Kate must decide if her future lies in her old life or in the magical town she is learning to call home.
Piranesi
Author:
Susanna Clarke
Genre:
Fantasy
Summary:
Susanna Clarke’s novel Piranesi centers on the eponymous narrator, who lives in a vast, labyrinthine House. He believes he is one of only two living people in existence, along with a man known as “the Other,” and meticulously journals his observations of the House’s statues and tidal shifts.
The Other, who is studying the House for “A Great and Secret Knowledge,” frames any changes as dangerous. However, when Piranesi discovers evidence of a third person, his peaceful but amnesiac life is upended. He begins to question his memories and learns a terrible truth about the House and his own forgotten past. The mystery slowly unravels, forcing Piranesi to confront the reality of his situation and the nature of the enigmatic world he inhabits.
The Seven Year Slip
Author:
Ashley Poston
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Summary:
The Seven Year Slip, centers on book publicist Clementine West, who is grieving the loss of her beloved aunt. Clementine has inherited her aunt’s magical Manhattan apartment, where time occasionally slips seven years into the past.
While in the apartment, Clementine meets Iwan, a charming chef who is temporarily subletting the space in the past. A romance blossoms between them, but Clementine knows she is living seven years in his future. After her time with him ends, she is surprised to discover that Iwan has become a well-known chef in her own time.
As Clementine and Iwan navigate their two timelines, they must reconcile the people they were with the people they have become. Ultimately, Clementine confronts her grief and learns to embrace change, realizing that love is about timing, not time. The book explores how the characters must grow and change to be together, allowing for a fresh start in the present.
The Midnight Library
Author:
Matt Haig
Genre:
Fantasy
Summary:
Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library follows Nora Seed, a woman in her thirties, who, after a suicide attempt, finds herself in a library existing between life and death. Guided by her former school librarian, Mrs. Elm, Nora can choose books that represent the infinite alternate lives she could have lived if she had made different decisions.
As Nora tries on these different versions of herself—from an Olympic swimmer to a rock star to a glaciologist—she discovers that every life has its own unique challenges and disappointments. By experiencing these paths, she realizes that happiness does not lie in a perfect, regret-free existence but in embracing life’s imperfections and possibilities. Ultimately, Nora returns to her original life with a newfound appreciation for it and a determination to live more fully.
The Starless Sea
Author:
Erin Morgenstern
Genre:
Fantasy/Romance
Summary:
The Starless Sea follows Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a graduate student who discovers a book that contains a story from his own childhood. The mysterious book, emblazoned with a bee, a key, and a sword, leads Zachary on a quest through secret societies and hidden doorways to a magical, subterranean world. This world is a labyrinthine library that houses all of the world’s stories, located on the shores of the titular Starless Sea.
In this enchanted place, Zachary meets the fierce protector Mirabel and the charming but elusive Dorian, and learns that a battle is being waged to either protect or destroy this magical realm. As Zachary navigates this world of fables, lost cities, and forbidden romance, he must fight to protect the Harbor while piecing together his own role in the ongoing war over stories. Ultimately, he must confront his own destiny and choose whether to follow the narrative laid out for him or to write his own.
The Unmaking of June Farrow
Author:
Adrienne Young
Genre:
Fantasy/Romance
Summary:
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young follows June, the last of the Farrow women in a small North Carolina mountain town, as she confronts a family curse. The women in her family are known for descending into madness, a fate June fears when she begins experiencing strange visions, including a mysterious red door. Her mother vanished years earlier, and June’s grandmother also succumbed to the curse.
Following a cryptic clue from her grandmother, June steps through the door and finds herself transported back to 1951. There, she uncovers the secret of her family’s ability to cross time and finds she has an entire life, including a husband and a daughter, that she can’t remember. June must now piece together the mysteries surrounding her family’s history and a local murder to save her family and break the curse forever.
The Water Dancer
Author:
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Summary:
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer is a magical realist novel following Hiram Walker, an enslaved man in the antebellum South. As the illegitimate son of a white plantation owner and a Black woman who was sold away, Hiram possesses a photographic memory but cannot recall his mother’s face.
He discovers he has a supernatural gift called “Conduction,” the ability to transport himself and others across impossible distances, which is activated by powerful memories and the presence of water. After a near-fatal accident, Hiram becomes determined to escape the Lockless plantation and join the fight against slavery.
He ultimately aligns with the Underground Railroad, using his newfound powers to help liberate others from bondage. His journey is both a literal and emotional quest, as he must unlock the suppressed memories of his mother to fully harness his gift and reunite with the family he was forced to leave behind. The novel reimagines the Underground Railroad as a covert war, emphasizing themes of memory, family, and the true meaning of freedom.
