Are you in the mood for light adventure, witches and/or pirates and/or demons and/or orcs, possibly with a side of fire-side tea in a bookshop? Enjoy these fresh but low-stakes comfort reads.
While there are older titles that would be cozy fantasy today (like Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones), this book started the new cozy fantasy trend in 2020. Forty-year-old Linus Baker, a quiet, uptight, and lonely man is a case…
A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance. Featuring swashbuckling, skulduggery and shenanigans, this offbeat, banter-filled…
Mika Moon is the child of an orphaned child of an orphaned child, like all witches. To protect themselves, they follow The Rules, and never gather in groups larger than 30, for 3 hours, every 3 months. But then Mika gets a strange job…
A disillusioned palace guard runs away with her girlfriend, a powerful mage, to live out their dream of opening a tea shop/bookstore. They settle in a small, welcoming town in contested territory, but are soon plagued by visits from the…
Unlike other wizards with powerful abilities, Mona's magic only works on bread and her familiars are a bucket of sentient sourdough starter and a gingerbread man cookie. Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead girl on the…
Spice trader Cinnamon's quiet life is turned upside down when she ends up on a quest with a fiery demon, in this irreverently quirky rom-com fantasy that is sweet, steamy, and funny as hell. This book has a great opening line, "I had only…
Viv, a battle-weary orc, hangs up her sword to open the first ever coffee shop in the city, but old and new rivals stand in the way of success, not to mention that no one has the faintest idea of what coffee actually is. Will delight…
Viv's career with Rackham's Ravens starts poorly when she's wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer. Left behind to recuperate in the sleepy town of Murk, Viv gradually assembles a group of friends including a swear-happy…
Mercy is single-handedly keeping Birdall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart. Hart is a marshal tasked with patrolling the magical wilds of Tanria, a lonely and unforgiving job, and he pens an anonymous letter to…
Emily Wilde, a genius scholar and meticulous researcher in the study of faeries, visits the hardscrabble village of Hransvik to uncover the secrets of the Hidden ones. She struggles to resist another new arrival: the dashing and…
Sera Swan is a witch who has lost her powers after resurrecting her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead. She might be able to get them back and get her life back on track if she can find an old spell book and convince icy…
Centuries ago, the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and wandered into the wilderness. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, who asks "what do people need?" More sci fi than fantasy, this leisurely-paced…
The Spellshop is a cozy fantasy about a rogue librarian and her best friend Caz, a talking spider plant, who take on the low-stakes market of illegal spell-selling and the high-risk business of starting over. It’s filled with hope and…
Desperate to rid herself of her fortune telling magic, Vanessa Yu follows her aunt's advice and travels to Paris, France. There, Vanessa learns more about her gifts and herself, and she finds herself drawn to an immovable truth: seeing…
Robin Blyth's already stressful life is turned on its head when an administrative mistake names him the civil service liaison to a magical society hidden from the rest of the world. His new position works closely with the magical liaison,…
