12 Magical Winter Fantasy Books

Free-spirited Grace and serious Kai are the best of friends. They grew up together listening to magical tales spun by Kai’s grandmother and sharing in each other’s secrets. But when they turn sixteen and Kai declares his love for Grace, everything changes. Grace yearns for freedom and slowly begins to push Kai – and their friendship – away.

Dejected Kai dreams of a dazzling Snow Queen, who entices him to leave home and wander to faraway lands. When Grace discovers Kai is gone, she learns how much she has lost and sets out on a mystical journey to find Kai…and discover herself.

The last night of the year. Now the days of winter begin, and the Goblin King rides abroad, searching for his bride…

All her life, Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, dangerous Goblin King. They’ve enraptured her mind, her spirit, and inspired her musical compositions. Now eighteen and helping to run her family’s inn, Liesl can’t help but feel that her musical dreams and childhood fantasies are slipping away.

But when her own sister is taken by the Goblin King, Liesl has no choice but to journey to the Underground to save her. Drawn to the strange, captivating world she finds—and the mysterious man who rules it—she soon faces an impossible decision. And with time and the old laws working against her, Liesl must discover who she truly is before her fate is sealed.

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

Long ago, following a cataclysm called “The Rupture,” the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands. Known now as Arks, each has developed in distinct ways; each seems to possess its own unique relationship to time, such that nowadays vastly different worlds exist, together but apart. And over all of the Arks the spirit of an omnipotent ancestor abides.

Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls. Beneath her worn scarf and thick glasses, the young girl hides the ability to read and communicate with the souls of objects, and the power to travel through mirrors. Her peaceful existence on the Ark of Anima is disrupted when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan. Ophelia must leave her family and follow her fiancée to the floating capital on the distant Ark of the Pole. Why has she been chosen? Why must she hide her true identity? Though she doesn’t know it yet, she has become a pawn in a deadly plot.

The first daughter is for the Throne.
The second daughter is for the Wolf.

As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose—to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he’ll return the world’s captured gods.

Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can’t control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can’t hurt those she loves. Again.

But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn’t learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood—and her world—whole.

She’s hounded from every side by treacherous elements and foes, but her greatest enemy lies within.

In the mountains near France, the medieval Princess Elyce is being forced to marry, thus forming an alliance that will enrich her father but enslave her kingdom. Instead, she chooses to feign her death and flee to Prague to beg King Wenceslaus to help save her people.

In England, the young knight Sir Gerard has a vision from God instructing him to help Elyce on her quest. When he arrives to find she has been near death for days, he manages to revive her. However, thinking the stranger was trying to kiss her, the princess immediately distrusted him. But her desperate situation forces her to accept his aid.

Pursued by her enemy’s guards over mountainous terrain, they must also battle the deadly winter elements. Her greatest challenge may be to overcome the voices of disapproval and accusation from her childhood. Will her emotions lead her into her true identity, or will they undermine her ability to work with Gerard and to save her people, who desperately need her help?

For most of the year, Summer reigns peacefully over Alderland. Then, for six brutal weeks, Winter rages, obliterating towns and wreaking casualties. Magicians bond with powerful wands of Summer to defend the nation, a duty that costs many their lives.

Domenic Barrow never wanted such responsibility―but destiny hasn’t granted him a choice. The greatest Summer wand has awakened for the first time in a century, warning that an icy cataclysm looms on the horizon. And despite his reputation as the least suited of his classmates, the wand Chooses Domenic to wield it.

Ellery Caldwell spent years striving to be a perfect Summer magician―and burying her fears of her own power. But her worst suspicions are proven true when she accidentally creates the first-ever Winter wand.

Now, as the unprecedented Chosen Two, Domenic and Ellery must thwart the oncoming cataclysm together. And in trying to fulfill their destinies, they wonder if they were brought together for a second fate: to fall in love.

Until they discover the unthinkable truth. The Chosen Two aren’t fated allies, but eternal rivals, and the only way to save their home is for one of them to slay the other.

This is no love story. It’s a tragedy.

A tea-loving mortal with a warm heart. A worldly fae prince in disguise. Midwinter is brewing something magical…

At the enchanting Winterfrost Market, renowned for its Midwinter celebrations, Elsie is run off her feet at her family’s cozy traveling tea house.

But the quaint town’s festivities lose their luster when her mother fails to return from her journey to Midwinter Haven—a fairytale land in the north, rumored to be inhabited by elves, witches, and fae.

With Elsie’s worry as dark as her strongest tea, she enlists the help of the captivating tracker, Kit, to guide her northward.

Stepping beyond her comfort zone, Elsie’s eyes are opened to magic she never thought possible. But she quickly discovers that Kit has secrets and suspects he may be one of the clever fae her sister warned her about.

Is Kit her dream prince, or an enemy in disguise? To find her mother, she must be willing to gamble her heart.

Grab a hot cup of tea, snuggle up, and embark on a magical journey to Midwinter Haven…

Winterfrost Market is a cozy fantasy with clean holiday romance and a generous sprinkling of magic!

High in their mountain covens, red witches pray to the Goddess, protecting the Witchlands by throwing the bones and foretelling the future.

It’s all a fake.

At least, that’s what Ryder thinks. He doubts the witches really deserve their tithes—one quarter of all the crops his village can produce. And even if they can predict the future, what danger is there to foretell, now that his people’s old enemy, the Baen, has been defeated?

But when a terrifying new magic threatens both his village and the coven, Ryder must confront the beautiful and silent witch who holds all the secrets. Everything he’s ever believed about witches, the Baen, magic and about himself will change, when he discovers that the prophecies he’s always scorned—

Are about him.

Ice goblin magic, an enchanted prince, and a peasant girl with nothing but courage and compassion.

Life in the North Lands has always been hard, but this winter is the most desperate Gytha has ever seen. Her family is desperate for any help.

Even from the enormous white bear.

Alexander offers food and kind words in his deep, growly voice, and Gytha cannot help but trust him. Even if he does have long, white teeth and claws.

But what he asks in return for his help will test Gytha’s very soul. For a year and a day, she must endure loneliness and isolation in the prison of the ice goblin queen, without letting the queen’s twisted words or the uncanny, silent goblin servants break her determination or her faith in Alexander.

What if Gytha’s courage and compassion are not enough to overcome the ice goblin queen’s magic?

What will it take to free the bear prince? Gytha, and the friends she has made in the frozen North, will not rest until they find out. Courage is not real until it is tested.

What will come will test them all.

Snow Bound is a reimagining of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” Venture to the frozen North in this fairy tale adventure romance, part of the All That Glitters series—a collection of twelve books brimming with Tales of Treasure and True Love. Each book is written by a different author and can be enjoyed in any order, so pick a new favorite and discover that not all that glitters is gold.

There is still worth in broken things.

With the end of her mourning period approaching, Princess Eirwen of Glaciar knows her time is up. Her aunt, Queen Regent Isolde, is going to strike soon, but Eirwen’s ready—as ready as one can be for their own assassination. As soon as Eirwen is out of the way, there will be nothing left to stop Isolde from taking over Glaciar.

With no allies, no plan, and a paltry amount of magic, Eirwen has no idea how she’s going to pull off a coup, but what other choice does she have?

As the youngest of seven, Prince Sterling of Idres is used to being overlooked at best and criticized at worst, but none of it bothers him. Nothing ever does. While he is generally uninterested in the world, when Princess Eirwen of Glaciar is mysteriously kidnapped, he takes notice while no one else seems to care.

However, when he discovers Snow White, the street performer who just so happens to sound a lot like the missing princess, he’s sufficiently intrigued. What is she doing in Idres, and what does it have to do with him?

Rakel, a princess by birth, has spent most of her life exiled on a barren mountain, despised because of her powerful snow magic. Though she longs to be accepted, she hides in her ice-castle and lives with the fear that her brother—the King—will one day order her execution.

Her empty life changes forever when an army of magic users—led by the enigmatic Colonel Farrin Graydim—invade her home country and plan to enslave its citizens. Swallowing her fear, Rakel joins forces with her jailers and uses her magic to save the people who scorned her.

If Rakel cannot defend her homeland, the country will be lost.