Cozy Up with These Heartwarming Fantasy & Sci-fi Adventures
Cozy fantasy/sci-fi novels combine uplifting adventure stories with well-developed, likeable characters, and this makes for some wonderful reading. Take a look at these great examples of a whimsical without being saccharine genre growing in popularity as a counter to our dystopian reality. ALH 5/2025
You don't have to eat food to know the way to a city's heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food--the…
Orphaned as a baby, Biddy grew up on a legendary island off the coast of Ireland, hidden by magic and glimpsed only by rare travelers who return with stories of a lone magician in a castle. The magician, Rowan, is Biddy's guardian and as her…
A powerful plant witch and a grumpy alchemist must work together in order to save their quiet little town in this debut cozy fantasy. Violet Thistlethwaite spent her life as a dark sorcerer's right hand, and now that he's dead, the powerful witch is…
In 1921, years after a botched spell disastrously allows a faerie into our world, the study of faerie magic is banned. Yet for those who survived, their wounds cannot be fixed by bandages and bedrest; a magical curse requires a magical solution.…
A fortune teller finds an unexpected family on her journeys in this heartwarming and charming fantasy debut. Tao, a migrant fortune teller fleeing a troubled past, travels between villages telling only small fortunes: whether it will hail next…
In a tiny mandrake farm on the edge of a miserable village, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence. Dividing her time between tolerating her feckless husband, caring for the farm's strange animals, and crooning over her…
Condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig finds himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into . . . a government job? By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by…
Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics. He can summon butterflies with a song or turn someone's hair pink by snapping his fingers. Though such minor charms don't earn him much respect, anything more elaborate always blows up in his face, and…
After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.
The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success -- not…
Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries and has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project yet: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm--as…
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic and stay away from other witches, so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age, she's used to being alone and…
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the…
Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the…
Onna can write spells faster than any of the young men in her village school. But despite her incredible abilities, she's denied a place at the nation's premier arcane academy. Undaunted, she sails to the bustling city-state of Hexos, hoping to find…
Magic is out of fashion, but good manners never are. Jemis Greenwing returned from university with a broken heart, a bad cold, and no prospects beyond a problematic inheritance and a job at the local bookstore. Ragnor Bella is a placid little market…
As librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, Kiela and her assistant Caz--a magically sentient houseplant--have spent the last decade preserving the empire's most precious spellbooks for the city's elite. Then a revolution begins, and the library…
Powerless witch Saika is ready to enact her sister's final request: to plant her remains at the famed Ash Gardens. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous knit-cardiganed mythical beast named…
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or manipulate water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery…
A simple case - or it should be. All clues point to the Toot Hansell Women's Institute, and Detective Inspector Adams is about to discover there's much more to the W.I. than just bake sales and jam making. Alice Martin, RAF Wing Commander (Ret.),…
When the fourth princess of Istalam is due to dedicate herself to a path serving the crown, she makes a choice that shocks everyone, herself most of all: She leaves. In hiding and being exiled from power, Miyara finds her place running a tea shop in…
