Six Contemporary Fantasy Books That Blend Magic With Reality

The first contemporary fantasy book in The Raven Cycle series , The Raven Boys, introduces us to a strange group of characters on their search for the dead Welsh king, Owen Glendower.

Set in the made-up town of Henrietta, Virginia, The Raven Boys takes place sometime in the early 2010s and has magical talking forests and characters who struggle with everything from curses to poverty to abuse.

The story has psychics and leylines, all things present in our reality, and builds on these to create its magic system, making it feel believable and grounded in reality.

Anyone who knows me will know this is my all-time favorite book and got me back into reading after a five-year reading slump, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that this is the book I recommend you start with.

A modern take on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale, A Curse So Dark and Lonely follows Harper from Washington, D.C. When she ends up stumbling into the magical land of Emberfall, she meets a prince who’s cursed to transform into a beast until someone falls in love with him.

The story mixes contemporary elements with magic and Harper's interpersonal struggles in a captivating way. It’s my sister's favorite fantasy book, which means you’ll love it even if reading fantasy isn’t your thing.

Set in Le Cirque des Rêves (The Circus of Dreams), The Night Circus is a very atmospheric, focused read.

The book follows the nightly traveling circus as two powerful magicians, Marco and Celia, duel with each other. The story focuses on their relationships with one another and the world.

A beautifully crafted story, The Night Circus is perfect if you want a character-driven contemporary fantasy story!

The Netflix adaptation of this book is far lighter in tone than the book it was adapted from, but both stories are worth your time if you like trolls and their mythology.

Set in the made-up town of Arcadia Oaks, both stories follow James “Jim” Lake Jr. as he finds out about the world that's hiding under his feet. As in the show, Jim has to take on the mantle of “Trollhunter” and protect the good trolls from the bad ones. But where the book and series differ is in their relationships.

Jim’s father is an odd man who lost his brother during the Milk Cartoon Epidemic and no longer trusts the town after witnessing him being taken by a strange creature. His nature causes a lot of conflicts between father and son, especially after Jim finds out the connection his uncle's disappearance had to the world of trolls.

A gritty and much darker version of the contemporary fantasy genre, Trollhunters has a contemporary setting, familiar relationships, and magic all in one.

The Lightning Thief is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and it introduces us to Percy as he finds out that he’s the son of a Greek god, and with this, a demigod. Throughout the story, we follow him as he sets out on a trip across the United States to free his mom from the Underworld and prove that he didn’t steal Zeus' lightning bolt.

With its charming set of characters, delightful narrative, and retelling of Greek myths, this is the perfect book to devour if you are new to the genre of contemporary fantasy .

Percy’s love for his mom and his friends shines through the page, and it makes us root for him all the more. Even though this book was written for a younger target audience, I still enjoyed reading it for the first time at 17 and re-reading it at 23, so I think it fits any age!

Part of an adult fantasy trilogy, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries follows the titular character in her attempt to finish her encyclopedia of faeries.

Set in Hartford, a cold village reminiscent of Reykjavik, the story has peculiar and loveable characters. Emily is easy to relate to with her introverted nature and love for research. The townspeople in Hartford make the village a place you wish you could visit. And let’s not forget her colleague, Wendell Bambleby—a person I would hate to meet in reality but loved reading about on the page—whom she suspects of being a faery. He is arrogant and slightly annoying but a nice break from the scholarly adventures of Emily.

Reading about Emily’s struggles with social interactions and getting the townspeople to like her makes the story very grounded in reality. The magic is second to the characters but still offers a lot in terms of worldbuilding, especially with the footnotes given in each chapter. This is a perfect and cozy contemporary fantasy to dive into!