Magical Realism Fiction

1820: Sophia Ashmore-Percy reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island, where he searches for rare biological specimens. Once there, however, she sets on her own voyage of discovery—stumbling across the very creature he is looking for, making an unexpected connection with a local woman, and ultimately reconsidering her marriage, life, and own desires. Decades later, audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness.

Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China. A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together.

Born to a wealthy Virginian family, privileged Jordan's got her life all planned out. Get her PhD, find the perfect Virginian man to marry, pop out a few more Kacys, and make her state senator father proud. If only Jordan could let the past rest. When your mother disappears without a trace, it carves a gash that bleeds a long time. Jordan has never given up hope that her mother is alive. So when Jordan's old nanny shows up with a mysterious locket containing a portrait of Jordan's mother, Jordan believes her hope was not in vain.

In the face of dark magic and evil witches, a secret witch-hunting society works tirelessly to keep them at bay. The Malleus Maleficarum Council has strict rules and practices for eradicating magic. Due to their work, witches have been almost forgotten, relegated to myth; but rumors are starting to emerge of a new power that will throw the world into chaos.

Hers was the plight of a gothic heroine, banished from her home by a cruel brother and his heartless wife, the Dragon Sage. Misunderstood and maligned, Georgiana’s only hope of rescue were letters to aunts describing the medieval dungeon to which she had been sent.

When twelve year old Joseph tragically loses his mother, his world is shattered. Left with his angry, alcoholic father in their rundown apartment, he finds himself longing to be free of the life he’s been stuck with. Staring into a generic landscape painting in the church basement at his mother’s funeral, he almost gets his wish; a mysterious girl in an Iron Maiden vest steps out of the picture, opening his eyes to impossible and incredible worlds.

Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She's often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean 11 years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid.

A new threat arises, stirring the beasts in its wake. A primordial beast so powerful all the gatherers in the nation have little hope of defeating it. Aiden must find a way to stand and prevent the destruction of Craesti City, the capital of the Kingdom.

The student witches are growing increasingly reckless, preying on the mundanes below the mountains as their tutors plot and scheme to take advantage of the chaos. And no one seems to know why. Emily is in no condition to intervene. But she cannot refuse. Heading to Laughter, Emily finds herself dragged into a world of schoolgirl games, staffroom politics, and a deadly plot aimed at the heart of the Allied Lands themselves.

On an unnamed archipelago off the east coast of Britain, the impossible has come to pass. Women control the civic institutions. Decide how the islands’ money is spent. Run the businesses. Tend to their families. Teach the children hope for a better world. They say that this gynotopia is Eva Levi’s life’s work, and that now she has disappeared, it will be destroyed. But they don’t know about Cwen. Cwen has been here longer than the civilisation she has returned to haunt. The clouds are her children, and the waves.

Gemma Turner once dreamed of stardom. Now the actress is on the cusp of obscurity. When she’s offered the lead in a radical new horror film, Gemma believes her luck has changed—but her dream is about to turn into a nightmare. One night, between the shadows of an alleyway, Gemma disappears on set and is never seen again. Yet, Gemma is alive. She’s been pulled into the film. And the script—and the monsters within it—are coming to life. Gemma must play her role perfectly if she hopes to survive.

As the novel opens, Artemio Cruz, the all-powerful newspaper magnate and land baron, lies confined to his bed and, in dreamlike flashes, recalls the pivotal episodes of his life. Carlos Fuentes manipulates the ensuing kaleidoscope of images with dazzling inventiveness, layering memory upon memory, from Cruz’s heroic campaigns during the Mexican Revolution, through his relentless climb from poverty to wealth, to his uneasy death. Perhaps Fuentes’ masterpiece, The Death of Artemio Cruz is a haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico.

In Jordan Castro’s inventive, funny, and surprisingly tender first novel, we follow a young man over the course of a single morning as he tries and fails to write an autobiographical novel, finding himself instead drawn into the infinite spaces of Twitter, quotidian rituals, and his own mind. The Novelist: A Novel pays tribute to Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and Thomas Bernhard’s Woodcutters, but in the end is a wholly original novel about language and consciousness, the internet and social media, and addiction and recovery.

When Alice’s best friend, Gabby, is reeling from a breakup, Alice writes her a heartfelt story to cheer her up. While reading it in a café, Gabby, as if by magic, meets the man of her dreams. Thinking the story might have some special power to it, Gabby shares it with her sister and other friends, who all find instant love. Word of mouth spreads, and Alice stumbles upon a new calling—to be a love scribe.

In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness - save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.

Hiromi Goto’s acclaimed debut novel is a feminist examination of the Japanese Canadian immigrant experience. Focusing on the lives of three generations of women in modern day Alberta, Goto uses their stories to examine the impacts of privilege and cultural identity on Asian Canadian immigrants.

Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and out of options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon’s Grande Armée. As a naturalist, her mysterious ability to heal any wound with herbal mixtures invites awe amongst the soldiers…and suspicion.

One morning, Hazel Brown awakes in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she’s written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. In her bemusement the hotel becomes every cheap room she ever stayed in during her youthful perambulations in 1980s Paris. This is the legend of a she-dandy’s life. Part magical realism, part feminist ars poetica, part history of tailoring, part bibliophilic anthem, part love affair with nineteenth-century painting, The Baudelaire Fractal is poet and art writer Lisa Robertson’s first novel.

Tornado et June sont deux chats nourris de poésie et de musique qui se sont mis à penser et se racontent, à tour de rôle. Ils vivent sur une péniche avec " Ceux-qui-se-croient-leurs-maîtres ". Depuis que ces derniers ont perdu un enfant après une fausse couche, ils peinent à se reconstruire. Et June abrite en son cœur le fantôme de Macha, cette petite fille qui aurait pu naître. Quand le récit commence, un autre drame menace. Tornado est malade et n’a peut-être plus que quelques jours à vivre.

Outlander meets Dan Brown Das Zeitreisen ist für sie nur ein Job. Bis er auftaucht ... Mitch lebt in Rom und arbeitet für das ITR, das Institute of Timetravel and Research des Vatikans – ein gefährlicher und schlecht bezahlter Job ohne Karriereaussichten. Aber hey, nur noch fünf Zeitreisen, bis sie sich mit einer fetten Abfindung zurückziehen und endlich ihr eigenes Café aufmachen kann. Doch dann bekommt sie einen neuen Partner – ein Typ, der sich um Vorschriften und Zeitreisegesetze so wenig schert wie um den berühmten Sack Reis in China.