Recommendations based on "A Darker Shade of Magic"

Experience Skulduggery Pleasant as never before – in this fully original graphic novel brought vibrantly to life in full colour‘A real cracker. Fun, thrilling, smartly scripted and powerfully making a stand for diversity and inclusion in the face of intimidation and ignorance. Even if this is your first encounter with the worlds of Skulduggery Pleasant, it’s one you will adore and never forget’ Win Wiacek, Now Read This!A small town in the middle of Ireland, a string of unexplained deaths and a monster on the loose. Better call in the experts.When Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain drive into Termoncara, they discover a town with a dark past and a people haunted by their own secrets. There is a creature stalking the streets – a creature who delights in cruelty, who feeds off the little hatreds, who grows stronger with every drop of blood spilled.Horror and mystery collide in an original graphic novel by Derek Landy, P. J. Holden, Matt Soffe, Rob Jones and Pye Parr.Derek Landy's book 'Until the End' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-04-2022.

The Riddle in Ruby trilogy takes readers on a rip-roaring adventure through an alternate version of colonial America, where magic and science meet, and where one young thief carries a secret everyone wants. In this second volume, Ruby Teach has become the enemy’s prisoner. She bargained with her freedom to protect her friends—but her friends aren’t about to abandon her, either. That’s not what friends do. Ruby’s blood holds a secret, one that could turn the tides of the looming war for whomever unlocks it first. Ruby’s father, former pirate Captain Teach, and her friends—a motley crew made up of a young aristocrat, a servant, and an apprentice alchemist—must race against time to locate the hidden fortress where she’s being held. But the one person who could help them is Ruby’s mysterious and powerful mother, and no one has seen her since Ruby’s birth. Kent Davis sweeps our heroes through cities and the deepest wilderness with imagination, humor, and magic that fans of Jonathan Stroud and Terry Pratchett will devour.

A debut novel full of magic, adventure, and romance, The Book of Doors opens up a thrilling world of contemporary fantasy for readers of The Midnight Library, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Night Circus, and any modern story that mixes the wonder of the unknown with just a tinge of darkness.Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.But this is no ordinary book…It is the Book of Doors.Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.Then she’s approached by a gaunt stranger in a rumpled black suit with a Scottish brogue who calls himself Drummond Fox. He’s a librarian who keeps watch over a unique set of rare volumes. The tome now in Cassie’s possession is not the only book with great power, but it is the one most coveted by those who collect them.Now Cassie is being hunted by those few who know of the Special Books. With only her roommate Izzy to confide in, she has to decide if she will help the mysterious and haunted Drummond protect the Book of Doors—and the other books in his secret library’s care—from those who will do evil. Because only Drummond knows where the unique library is and only Cassie’s book can get them there.But there are those willing to kill to obtain those secrets. And a dark force—in the form of a shadowy, sadistic woman—is at the very top of that list.

Return to the enchanting world of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London in this sequel by Garth Nix, bestselling master of teen fantasy, where once again a team of booksellers must fight to keep dangerous magic under cover before the stuff of legends destroys our world. New York Times bestseller!There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity that inhabits the ancient hot spring.This time trouble comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger, requiring a desperate rescue attempt from his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, and art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage.The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery and guarded by monstrous living statues. But this is only the beginning. To unravel the secrets of a murderous Ancient Sovereign, the booksellers must investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths. If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her target is not an ordinary mortal.

A Wonderful Mix Of A Magical Stardust World And The Everyday Dilemmas That Every Young Girl Faces. As The Last Of The Summer Stardust Spirits, It Has Been Foretold That Lucy Will Have A Big Part To Play In Protecting Others From Dark Stardust Spirits. But To Be Able To Do This, Lucy Must Practise Her Magical Powers With Joanna, A Friend Of Her Best Friend's Mum And A Particularly Strong Spirit. But, However Hard She Practises, Strange Things Begin To Happen All Around Lucy. She's Not Sure Her Best Friends Can Help And She Can't Even Tell Her Mum And Dad About Her Stardust Secret. Will Lucy's Magic Be Strong Enough To Save Herself And Her Friends?

“Lots of fun.”--The New York Times Book Review

Alex Verus faces his dark side in this return to the bestselling urban fantasy series about a London-based mage.To protect his friends, Mage Alex Verus has had to change - and embrace his dark side. But the life mage Anne has changed too, and made a bond with a dangerous power. She's going after everyone she's got a grudge against - and it's a long list.In the meantime, Alex has to deal with his arch-enemy, Levistus. The Council's death squads are hunting Alex as well as Anne, and the only way for Alex to stop them is to end his long war with Levistus and the Council, by whatever means necessary. It will take everything Alex has to stay a step ahead of the Council and stop Anne from letting the world burn.

This second book in the acclaimed Bliss trilogy mixes the down-home heart-punch of Ingrid Law's Newbery Honor Book Savvy, the always-on-the-edge-of-chaos comedy of Cheaper by the Dozen, and a humorous magic all its own to create a thoroughly original confection to please every reader's sweet tooth!The Bliss family's magical Cookery Booke was stolen by evil Aunt Lily at the end of Bliss, the first novel in the series. Now twelve-year-old Rosemary has a chance to win it back: she challenges her aunt to an Iron Chef-style international baking competition in Paris.But the only way to beat the cheating Aunt Lily is to gather magical ingredients of her own. Together with her brothers and their talking cat and mouse, Rose races across Paris—from the Eiffel Tower to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum—to gather what she needs to out-bake—and out-magic—her conniving aunt.If Rose wins, the cherished Cookery Booke will return to her family where it belongs. If she loses—well, the consequences are too ugly to think about. . . .

The author of the visionary New York Times bestseller Dread Nation returns with another spellbinding historical fantasy set at the crossroads of race and power in America.It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided—between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology—otherwise known as Mechomancy—not the traditional mystical arts.Laura disagrees. A talented young queer mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mage’s license and becoming something more than a rootworker.But four months later, she’s got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for a job with the Bureau of the Arcane’s Conservation Corps, a branch of the US government dedicated to repairing the Dynamism so that Mechomancy can thrive. There she meets the Skylark, a powerful mage with a mysterious past, who reluctantly takes Laura on as an apprentice.As they’re sent off on their first mission together into the heart of the country’s oldest and most mysterious Blight, they discover the work of mages not encountered since the darkest period in America’s past, when Black mages were killed for their power—work that could threaten Laura’s and the Skylark’s lives, and everything they’ve worked for.

Fantasy adventure at its best! This collection contains all seven books in Angie Sage's internationally bestselling Septimus Heap series. Readers will love the enchanting and humorous adventures of a wizard apprentice and his quest to become an ExtraOrdinary Wizard. New York Times Bestselling Series  “Readers will be indubitably hooked—worrying, laughing, and gasping over the nonstop adventures of this engaging troupe.” —VOYA (Starred Review) The series follows the adventures of Septimus Heap, who, as a seventh son of a seventh son, has magical powers. After he becomes the apprentice of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, he starts his studies for seven years and a day to become an Ordinary Wizard (or maybe an ExtraOrdinary?). His adventures take place in a fictional world full of secrets and mysteries, a world where rats are messengers and can speak, a world where spells are common and where the dark forces are trying to penetrate. In addition to Magyk, Flyte, Physik, Queste, Syren, Darke, and Fyre are The Magykal Papers, a wonderful full-color compendium of extras such as maps, guides, and journals, and The Darke Toad, a 96-page novella packed with the action, humor, and magic.