Welcome back to Book Break! In this video I'm recommending a ton of quirky fantasy books that
blend fantastical worlds with splashes of humour, unexpected twists and oddball characters that you
just can't help but love. And I'm starting with Black Water Sister by Zen Cho which actually
comes out a week today from when this video first goes live, so quick get those last minute
pre-orders in now. This is a fantasy adventure set in Malaysia, and the author actually described it
on her Twitter as ‘a stressed zillennial lesbian fights gods, ghosts, gangsters and grandmas in
21st century Penang’. And Twitter as you can imagine had a field day with that description.
How perfect does that sound? The story follows a girl called Jessamin who is just packing for
a trip to Malaysia, her first visiting since she was a toddler, when she starts hearing a voice
in her head - and a very bossy one at that. It turns out the voice belongs to the ghost of her
late grandmother Ah Ma, who is on a mission to avenge her deity, the black water sister, who
she worships, and who has been insulted by a local gang boss. And Jess is going to get dragged in to
help whether she likes it or not. China Mieville is the author of a bunch of strange quirky sci-fi
fantasy books. So if quirky fantasy is your genre, you can really check out his whole back catalogue.
I have got here the book Kraken, which is a strange, funny, sometimes flat out scary story
that brings to life a london inhabited by wizards, cultists and assassins - all at war with each
other. And then in the Natural History Museum, the prize specimen, which is this rare and perfectly
preserved giant squid, suddenly goes missing. To the curator, the specimen was a biological rarity,
but to some others in this world it is so much more than that. It might actually be a god and
it might be able to end the world. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman is the first book in
an ongoing series about a magical library that links alternate worlds, parallel timelines and
every mythical creature you've ever heard of. Our main character Irene is a librarian
spy. It's her job to collect one-of-a-kind books from various alternate worlds, as well as managing
a multi-universal rivalry between the fae and the dragons. So this book takes place in an alternate
Victorian London. And each book in the series takes us to a new city in a new time period.
Book Break even went to Paris once to explore some of the gorgeous libraries there that were featured
in one of the books a little later in this series. The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu is another
one for library lovers. This is the first in the Edinburgh Nights series. So in this book we meet
Ropa who dropped out of school to become a ghost talker. It is her job to pass on messages between
the dead and the living. But then she starts getting messages that children in Edinburgh are
being bewitched, and it's up to Ropa to call on her ancestral Zimbabwean magic to help solve the
mystery. Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi is a quirky literary fantasy about three generations of women
linked by a gingerbread recipe passed down through the generations - a recipe that may
actually be a curse. The family are now living in present day contemporary London, although
it's not totally normal, they do live in a gold painted flat with a collection of houseplants
that are a lot chattier than any I've ever owned. I'm looking at you, strangely silent plant here.
But the family originally come from a country that may not even really exist. The book plays
with fairy tales and it doesn't have a traditional narrative structure at all. I found it completely
enchanting. The Charmed Life of Alex Moore by Molly Flatt is another one that starts in
present-day London in what appears to be our regular world, except that Alex Moore's life
is going really really well, like strangely well. It's only when Alex takes a trip to the
Orkney islands to recharge that the book takes a strange sci-fi fantasy twist. On this trip Alex
is going to discover the world's oldest secret and discover how she has massively messed it up.
TJ Klune is a wonderful quirky fantasy author who's got two books coming out this year.
US readers have already been raving about The House in the Cerulean Sea which is about six
dangerous children living in an orphanage on a magical island. That one has been such a BookTube
favourite, so it's very exciting news that TJ Klune has another book on the way this year,
called Under The Whispering Door which is about a ghost called Wallace who's not quite ready to say
goodbye to life yet and the ferry man he falls in love with. Neil Gaiman is another name synonymous
with quirky fantasy, and a really good example is his book The Graveyard Book, which is about a boy
called Bod Owens who is raised by the supernatural inhabitants of a graveyard, after his own family
were murdered. And The Graveyard Book has actually been adapted into a graphic novel so you can
read it in either format which is exciting. And then for another graphic novel recommendation,
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi is a collection of the Sailor Moon manga series.
So this series is about Usagi who is just a regular girl until she meets the talking cat Luna
who tells her that she's Sailor Moon. And Usagi herself is this really funny quirky character,
and the series kick-started a whole genre of magical girl adventures. Rotherweird by Andrew
Caldecott starts in 1558 when 12 children with unusual abilities were banished to the town of
Rotherweird, and now four and a half centuries later the town is still bound by the laws of
Elizabethan England. The town is full of eccentric and genius characters with brilliant names like
Rhumba Snorkel and Deidre Banter, and outsiders are not welcome. But the secrets of Rotherweird
are ready to be uncovered. Folk by Zoe Gilbert gives us another remote isolated village
Neverness. So this one is actually a collection of interconnected short stories all based around
this strange island town and its inhabitants. And the book gets its name because all the stories
weave together to create the folklore of this strange magical place. And finally one more for
your wish list, A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske is going to be a queer historical fantasy set in
a magical Edwardian England where two magicians must unravel a strange contract that could have
dire consequences for Britain. So if you want more quirky book recommendations like this,
I will link here to another video we made about the best quirky books, and I would
also love to hear your recommendations. Do leave us a comment below. See you next time!