Books like 'Hell Bent'
Readers who enjoyed Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary fantasy mystery urban fantasy horror supernatural paranormal dark-academia magic dark
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Neverwhere: BBC Dramatisation by Neil Gaiman, Dirk Maggs
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsBeneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London... -
Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.Ronan Lynch is a dreamer...Categorized as:
dark-academia low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook book -
The Ringmaster by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsAs above, so below…who was once friend is now a foe.The Faire is alive. It’s alive, it’s sentient, and it wants more from Cora Glass. Reeling from the revelations that Clown left her with, she struggles once more to find her footing. She never gets the chance.Harrow Faire wants Cora for murder. She assumed it was her death that it was after. She was wrong. It wants her to kill…to save them all... -
The Witchstone by Henry H. Neff
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn unforgettable, high-stakes, laugh-out-loud funny novel, The Witchstone blends the merciless humor of The Good Place with the spellbinding fantasy of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.Meet Laszlo, eight-hundred-year-old demon and Hell’s least productive Curse Keeper. From his office beneath Midtown, he oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black stone... -
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Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom World Fantasy Award-winning author Charles de Lint, a tale of love, courage, and the transforming power of imagination Isabelle Copley's visionary art frees ancient spirits. As the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, she discovered she could paint images so vividly real they brought her wildest fantasies to life...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure anthologies audiobook classics -
The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction by Neil Gaiman, Marlon James
Rated: 4.49 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn outstanding array—52 pieces in all—of selected fiction from the multiple-award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, curated by his readers around the world, and introduced with a foreword by Booker Prize-winning author Marlon JamesSpanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure anthologies -
In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThis fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook boarding-school -
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 86 ratingsUnder the streets of London there's a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 20th-century action-adventure angels -
The Puppeteer by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSilver strings she can’t outrun…her trouble now has just begun.After Cora Glass’s life was stolen by Harrow Faire, things just keep going from bad to worse. Unable to run, unable to escape, there seems to be no way to avoid what she’s become—the Contortionist. But a girl can only take so much.Haunted by an abandoned and seemingly sentient circus? Fine... -
Portents by Kelley Armstrong
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Collection of Cainsville TalesCainsville, Illinois. A town founded by fae escaping the Old World. A town both part of the world and cut off from it. A town that a young woman will run to, fleeing her past, only to discover that her past extends further than she ever imagined, into the distant history of Cainville itself... -
Promise the Moon by Hailey Edwards
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLorimar Pack, Book 1War is a constant threat on Dell Preston's horizon. As beta of the Lorimar pack, her job is to maintain the peace on the new border between Faerie and Earth at all costs... -
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsA missing God.A library with the secrets to the universe. A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure -
The Girl Who Could Not Dream by Sarah Beth Durst
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSophie loves the hidden shop below her parents' bookstore, where dreams are secretly bought and sold. When the dream shop is robbed and her parents go missing, Sophie must unravel the truth to save them. Together with her best friend—a wisecracking and fanatically loyal monster named Monster—she must decide whom to trust with her family’s carefully guarded secrets...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure animals audiobook book -
False Value by Ben Aaronovitch
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNow in hardcover, the eighth book of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure adult -
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Dream a Little Dream by Kerstin Gier
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsMysterious doors with lizard-head knobs. Talking stone statues. A crazy girl with a hatchet. Yes, Liv's dreams have been pretty weird lately. Especially the one where she's in a graveyard at night, watching four boys conduct dark magic rituals.The strangest part is that Liv recognizes the boys in her dream... -
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 63 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar... -
Necropolis by Anthony Horowitz
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsHong Kong has been taken over by the Old Ones and has become Necropolis, City of the Dead. Once in, there is no way out… Evil has been unleashed on the world and only five children – with special powers – can save it... -
Cold Spectrum by Craig Schaefer
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsCriminologist Harmony Black is a witch with a loaded Glock. Her partner, Jessie Temple, is packing fierce lupine heat. Together, they’re part of Vigilant Lock, an elite FBI black ops group dedicated to defeating criminals with supernatural connections... -
The Wonderful Adventures of Geoffrey Scrutinous by Derek Landy
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA short story written by Derek Landy dedicated to the winner of the character competition, Charlie Smith, containing the winning entry of "Geoffrey Scrutinous"... -
Angel Fire East by Terry Brooks
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAngel Fire East marks the close of Terry Brooks's Word and Void trilogy, which began with 1997's Running with the Demon. In this book, the story returns to Nest's native Hopewell, where once again Nest and John must face off against the Void...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic paranormal action-adventure alternate-history apocalyptic audiobook -
Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe third book in the bestselling Russian trilogy that is part fantasy, part vampire story, and part detective story, tells of an ancient race of humans who have supernatural powers and swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. In Twilight Watch, they face their greatest threat yet...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure adult -
Veiled Enchantments by Deborah Blake
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this exciting novel in the Veiled Magic series, Witch and police officer Donata Santori travels to Maine to help solve a deadly mystery, where her magical abilities are tested like never before... -
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Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA tightly woven blend of myth, magic, and the ties of a found family.Ghosts that speak in smoke. Spirits with teeth like glass. A parasitic, soul-eating spirit worm has gone into a feeding frenzy, but all the Jong-ro Police Department’s violent crimes unit sees is a string of suicides. Except for Kim Han-gil, Seoul’s only spirit detective. He’s seen this before... -
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The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles) by Karen Ranney
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLife was getting stranger instead of easier. Not only was Marcie Montgomery still craving tacos - and any kind of cheesecake - now she was lusting after her knight in confusing armor. Plus, she knew her dog wasn’t exactly a dog... -
Keeper of the Bees by Meg Kassel
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Beauty and the beast like you've never imagined!" —New York Times bestselling author Pintip DunnKEEPER OF THE BEES is a tale of two teens who are both beautiful and beastly, and whose pasts are entangled in surprising and heartbreaking ways.Dresden is cursed. His chest houses a hive of bees that he can’t stop from stinging people with psychosis-inducing venom... -
I’m Glad You’re Dead by Hunter Blain
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAfter helplessly witnessing the execution of his family, John is approached by a strange man that promises the power of revenge, for a price; his life for the ability to walk the mortal plane for eternity. Fast forward several hundred years where John finds himself with an unlikely ally, Father Thomes Philseep... -
Glass Predator by Craig Schaefer
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor Harmony Black, practicing witch and government agent, defeating criminal masterminds and eliminating supernatural threats are all in a day’s work. She’s ready to fight, as long as she can count on her partner, Jessie Temple; her team at off-the-books special FBI unit Vigilant Lock; and her magic. But her latest case threatens it all... -
Threadneedle by Cari Thomas, Patricia Sebastián Hernández
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWithin the boroughs of London, nestled among its streets, hides another city, filled with magic.Magic is the first sin. It must be bound.Ever since Anna can remember, her aunt has warned her of the dangers of magic. She has taught her to fear how it twists and knots and turns into something dark and deadly.It was, after all, magic that killed her parents and left her in her aunt’s care... -
Lanny by Max Porter
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThere’s a village sixty miles outside London. It’s no different from many other villages in England: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, council cottages and a few bigger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might do anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs... -
The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt's said that if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, then the Tower will crumble and the kingdom will fall. Resurrected sorcerer Matthew Swift is about to discover that this isn't so far from the truth...One by one, the protective magical wards that guard the city are falling: the London Wall defiled with cryptic graffiti, the ravens found dead at the Tower, the London Stone destroyed...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure adult -
White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsGuthrie was a good place to be from, but it wasn’t a great place to live, not when you were like Adam, in all the ways Adam was like Adam.Adam Binder hasn’t spoken to his brother in years, not since Bobby had him committed to a psych ward for hearing voices... -
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsNew York Times bestselling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces readers to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in this standalone fantasy.Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.Meet Dodger, his twin...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure alchemy -
The Glass God by Kate Griffin
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSharon Li: apprentice shaman and community support officer for the magically inclined. It wasn't the career Sharon had in mind, but she's getting used to running Magicals Anonymous and learning how to Be One With The City.When the Midnight Mayor goes missing, leaving only a suspiciously innocent-looking umbrella behind him, Sharon finds herself promoted. Her first task: find the Midnight Mayor...Categorized as:
low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure adult book contemporary -
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Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsGalaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away... -
Hell's Horizon by D.B. Shan, Darren Shan
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsWhen Al Jeery is seconded by The Cardinal from guard duties at Party Central to investigate the murder of a woman at a hotel he little suspects that the dead woman will turn out to be his girlfriend. Soon he is involved in a terrifying mystery... -
Tales From the Hinterland by Melissa Albert
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA gorgeously illustrated collection of twelve fairy tales by the author of The Hazel Wood and The Night Country!Journey into the Hinterland, a brutal and beautiful world where a young woman spends a night with Death, brides are wed to a mysterious house in the trees, and an enchantress is killed twice―and still lives...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure anthologies audiobook -
Demon Road by Derek Landy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe mind-blowing new supernatural thriller from bestselling author DEREK LANDY, creator of international sensation Skulduggery Pleasant.Full of Landy’s trademark wit, action and razor-sharp dialogue, DEMON ROAD kicks off with a shocking opener and never lets up the pace in an epic road-trip across the supernatural landscape of America... -
Last Call by Tim Powers
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsTwenty years ago Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player and went into hiding, after a weird high-stakes game played with Tarot cards. But now the cards - and the supernatural powers behind them - have found him again.Crane's father killed gangster Bugsy Siegel in 1948 to become the Fisher King, and to keep that power he is determined to kill his son...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Rogue by Gina Damico
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLex is a teenage Grim Reaper with the power to Damn souls, and it’s getting out of control. She’s a fugitive, on the run from the maniacal new mayor of Croak and the townspeople who want to see her pay the price for her misdeeds. Uncle Mort rounds up the Junior Grims to flee Croak once again, but this time they’re joined by Grotton, the most powerful Grim of all time...Categorized as:
dark low-fantasy magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure alpha-mc audiobook -
Trouble on Reserve by Kim Harrison
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA routine protection gig for business tycoon Trent Kalamack quickly goes wrong when runner Rachel Morgan discovers she is the assassin's target.Hollows short with Trent and Rachel working together. The timing of the story sort of puts it between A Perfect Blood and Ever After, but the feeling of it is seriously slanted toward Ever After... -
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsLesson One of the Scholomance: Learning has never been this deadly.A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets. There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones...Categorized as:
dark dark-academia magic magical-realism paranormal action-adventure audiobook boarding-school -
The Thread That Binds the Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTom Renfield, janitor-cum-taxi driver, has always had some weird abilities - seeing ghosts, perceiving other 'currents' of energy... but he's always tried to ignore them. Running from himself seems to be a large part of how he ended up in the tiny town of Arcadia... -
The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBe careful what you wish for…The continuing tale in the award-nominated Witches of Lychford series, described by Seanan McGuire as “Beautifully written, perfectly cruel and ultimately kind”.The borders of Lychford are crumbling. Other realities threaten to seep into the otherwise quiet village, and the resident wise woman is struggling to remain wise... -
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The Shadow Pavilion by Liz Williams
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDetective Inspector Chen is back! The Snake Agent returns in The Shadow Pavilion, the fourth Detective Inspector Chen novel from Liz Williams. When Chen’s partner, the demon Seneschal Zhu Irzh, disappears, Chen must enlist all of his allies and assets in order to locate him... -
Dark Ladies: Conjure Wife/Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsConjure WifeWitchcraft. Norman Saylor considered it nothing but superstition, until he learned that his own wife was a practicing sorceress. Even still, he refuses to accept the truth that every woman knows...that in the secret occult warfare that governs our lives, witchcraft is a matter of life and death... -
The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA teenage girl must save her town from a memory-devouring monster in this piercing exploration of grief, trauma, and memory, from the author of The Valley and the Flood.For generations, a monster called the Memory Eater has lived in the caves of Whistler Beach, Maine, surviving off the unhappy memories of those who want to forget... -
Just Dreaming by Kerstin Gier
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA dream traveler faces the greatest challenge she's yet encountered in this gripping third and final book of the Silver trilogy.The course of dream travel never did run smooth—at least, not in Liv Silver's experience... -
Nightbooks by J.A. White
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA boy is imprisoned by a witch and must tell her a new scary story each night to stay alive. This thrilling contemporary fantasy from J. A. White, the acclaimed author of the Thickety series, brings to life the magic and craft of storytelling.Alex’s original hair-raising tales are the only thing keeping the witch Natacha happy, but soon he’ll run out of pages to read from and be trapped forever... -
All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O'Donoghue, Stefanie Caponi
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMaeve’s strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card—and then disappears. After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school...
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