Our Sci-Fi and Fantasy Week celebrations continue anon with this collection of the most popular fantasy books of the past three years. As always, the included books are determined by average star ratings (everything here is 3.5 stars or better) and which titles wind up on Goodreads members’ Read and Want to Read shelves.
 
A three-year chunk is a pretty good time frame to get a sense of what’s trending in the genre—which books are finding readers in the ebb and flow of fantasy writing. One interesting little wave: We’re definitely seeing more of a quieter and gentler style of speculative fiction, sometimes called cozy fantasy. Readers are responding to the slice-of-(fantasy)-life style in books like The House in the Cerulean Sea, Legends & Lattes, and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.
 
Dark academia and school-of-magic stories remain popular as well. R.F. Kuang’s excellent Babel led the charge last year, and that’s a seriously cool book. In recent months we’ve seen an unprecedented surge of affection for Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing, the first installation in her new series, The Empyrean, concerning the trials and tribulations of dragon rider flight school.
 
Big epic fantasy will always have a healthy audience of devoted readers, and you’ll see plenty of that style represented here. On top of all that, you’ll find the usual assortment of moon goddesses, minotaurs, warrior queens, shadow thieves, book eaters, and sentient cities.
 
Scroll over the book cover images below for more details, and add anything interesting to your Want to Read list.

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