These Wintry Fantasy Books Celebrate the Most Magical Season

Christelle Dabos’ A Winter Promise unfolds in a far-away realm divided into several celestial islands called “arks,” each with its distinct sense of magic—and time. The story is about Ophelia, a young girl from the Ark of Anima who’s given away in marriage to Thorn, belonging to the influential Dragon clan in the distant Ark of the Pole. Thrust into a world she doesn’t yet understand, Ophelia must hide her magical powers such as reading people from the objects they’ve touched and traveling through mirrors, while navigating courtly machinations. 

If you’re looking for a YA read filled with intrigue and some romance set in a wintry world, give A Winter’s Promise a try. 

Blending Russian folklore with history and mythology, Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale is a very promising start to her Winternight trilogy. Much of the story unfolds in the remote countryside, and follows the adventures of young Vasya who can still see the household spirits and other magical creatures—whose existences are threatened by the influx of Orthodox Christianity. Exploring societal tensions and gender roles, The Bear and the Nightingale is a stunning and sumptuous read, peppered with a slow-burn romance between Vasya and the frost demon, Morozko.

If you enjoyed Naomi Novik’s Uprooted wherein a romantic fairytale unfolds in the backdrop of a sentient and villainous forest and some royal intrigue, you’ll also enjoy Spinning Silver that taps into the wintry, snow-filled landscape, the allure of fey bargains and the charm of bedside fairytales. Originally published as a short story, Novik expanded it into a novel, drawing upon elements from the tale of Rumpelstiltskin. Like other books featured on this list, Spinning Silver also include clever, strong-willed female protagonists making the best of their difficult circumstances and uneasy marriages that nevertheless, ease into satisfying happily-ever-afters. 

If you have a soft spot for fairytales retold in lush, redolent and atmospheric prose, Robin McKinley is the author for you. Deerskin is based on a lesser-known French fairytale called “Donkeyskin,” wherein a king beguiled by the beauty of his own daughter is determined to marry her. McKinley’s novel deals less with the sordid details of incest and rape and more on the protagonist Lissla Lissar’s trauma. It follows her slow journey towards healing, peace, and finding love. It’s a brilliant and bravely written book that doesn’t shy away from embracing the disturbing origins of certain fairytales and is ideal for lovers of dark fantasy.

If phantasmagorical train rides are more your thing, Sarah Brooks’ debut novel is definitely worth reading. The novel follows three unique characters aboard the grand and luxurious Trans-Siberian Express that passes through the frozen tundra landscape of the Wastelands, filled with terrifying creatures that elude human understanding. The prose is peppered with exquisite descriptions with an engaging mystery at its heart, making The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands one of my most memorable reads of 2024. 

If you’re in the mood for more traditional fairy tales, you can pick up a collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. His tales are often inflected with a sense of melancholy or tragedy, yet manage to capture the beauty in small things and impart morals about the virtues of resilience. Many of his stories are set amidst ice and snow, such as “The Little Match Girl” and “The Ice Maiden,” and of course, “The Snow Queen.” In fact, an illustrated copy of The Snow Queen can make for the perfect Christmas present. After all, one can never go wrong with the classics.

Let's end with one for the science fiction lovers. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is literally set on a cold and alien planet called “Winter”. Written for adults, the book ambitiously explores questions of sex, gender and cultural diversity. It follows one Genly Ai, who is sent as an ambassador to the planet of Winter/Gethen, and his struggles to communicate and understand the culture of the ambisexual Gethenians. It’s a contemplative and groundbreaking work of science fiction that still remains vastly relevant in this day and age. 

In the Winterlong trilogy, author Elizabeth Hand has carved a richly detailed universe with sci-fi and post-apocalyptic elements. The first book Winterlong is set amidst a devastated landscape, ravaged by genetic engineering, and through the remains of great civilization, a young girl and her twin brother must make a perilous journey. Poetic, unsettling and evocative, Winterlong packs a punch and makes for a rather sensual and hallucinatory read. Carefully crafted and beautifully written, Winterlong feels less like “science fantasy” and more of a decadent, pagan relic of a bygone era. Truly, a one-of-a-kind read. 

Most of us have grown up with the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” But there’s a slightly lesser-known fairytale called “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” which also features an animal bridegroom and plenty of adventure, and forms the basis for Edith Pattou’s young adult novel, East. A charming and magical read, Pattou’s book gloriously expands on the original Norwegian fairytale, adding lush details and turning the storyline into an epic fantasy quest. With multiple points-of-view and incredible character development, East is a highly satisfying read, that is also followed by a spellbinding sequel, West.   

I’ve always had a soft spot for fairytale retellings, and Patricia A. McKillip’s Winter Rose not only puts a new spin on the Tam Lin folktale but imbues it with new depths of love and longing, in lush, evocative prose. Indeed, Winter Rose bewitches the reader by the lyrical cadences of its sentences and its story of romance, decadence and fey enchantments. The plot follows two sisters who both befriend and fall in love with the same man—Corbett Lynn, haunted by a curse. Dreamy, sensual and exquisitely-written, Winter Rose is a passionate fairytale, and even comes with a sequel, Solstice Wood. 

Those who enjoy epistolary narratives will certainly be taken in by the cozy charms of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. The story follows Emily Wilde, an introverted Cambridge professor who ventures deep into the frosty northern country with the hope of observing and studying fairies in their natural habitat, and maintains a copious log of her travels. But she isn’t prepared for the arrival of her academic rival nor for her abduction by the Fair Folk. Entertaining, exciting and heartwarming, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is a delightfully mischievous read. It even has some quaint folktales embedded as part of the narrative.

A winter fairytale is incomplete without the snowy setting—something that Eowyn Ivey really takes to heart in her debut novel, The Snow Child, deftly transporting readers to Alaska in the 1920s. The magic realist story follows Jack and Mabel, a lonely childless couple, crumbling under pressure of the brutal weather and farm work—until their lives change when they build a child out of snow and the next day, find a living child roaming the woods. 

As the couple welcomes the mysterious child to their home, they have no idea of the heart-warming and heart-breaking experiences that await them. Beautiful, magical and filled with realistic details of the rural wilderness, this Pulitzer-Prize-nominated novel by Eowyn Ivey is a book that will rip your heart open and make you cry.

Finally, if you’re in the mood for a beguiling book that’s part historical fiction, part a suspense-ridden detective story, part folktale, and part wintry adventure, you have a winner in Yangtze Choo’s The Fox Wife. The story unfolds in early 1900s Manchuria in the final years of the Qing empire, and follows the journey of Ah San or “Snow”—a fox spirit on the hunt to track down her daughter’s murderer. Her path crosses with that of Bao, an elderly detective, trying to uncover the mysterious death of a courtesan. Slow-paced, with a delicious attention to detail, The Fox Wife is an emotionally rich and engaging read.