The 5 Most-Read Fantasy Books on Goodreads Right Now: Sarah J. Maas to ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’

1. ‘House of Flame and Shadow’ (January 30, 2024)

Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury

What It’s About: The third book in Maas’ Crescent City series picks up with Bryce Quinlan stranded far from Midgard and desperate to find her way home to the people she loves. Meanwhile, Hunt Athalar is once again imprisoned by the Asteri, with no idea what has happened to Bryce. As the two struggle separately to reunite, the fate of their world hangs in the balance.

Sarah J. Maas says: “I’d loved fairy tales since I was a kid. Then I discovered there were fairy tales for grown-ups. That opened something in my mind, heart, and soul. I realized I not only loved stories like that, I wanted to write stories like that.” (TIME)

And on these books ultimately forming something of her own multiverse: “For years and years, I had sprinkled little hints throughout all of my books that they were part of a megaverse. Then, when I started writing Crescent City, I had this idea out of the blue that, bam, this is the moment. I just felt like, ‘I can f**king do this. It’s going to be amazing.’ I just idly loved the idea of little pieces from these worlds overlapping a little bit. It wasn’t until about four or five years ago that I had this idea out of the blue: What if I took that to the next level? What if someone just went to another world? What would that be like? And once I had that idea, I saw the ending of House of Sky and Breath.” (Today)

2. ‘The Eye of the Bedlam Bride’ (July 2, 2023)

Author: Matt Dinniman
Publisher: Originally independently published; republished by Ace/Penguin Random House

What It’s About: Book six of the wildly popular Dungeon Crawler Carl series finds Carl and Princess Donut reaching the dungeon’s eighth floor, where surviving crawlers must capture monsters and turn them into cards for an increasingly lethal game. The ultimate prize is Shi Maria, the terrifying Bedlam Bride, whose special attack can drive her victims insane. And, as Carl and Donut have learned by now, capturing a monster doesn’t necessarily mean controlling it. Dinniman originally published the novel in July 2023; his site records its republication on May 13, 2025.

Matt Dinniman says: “When I first started writing [Dungeon Crawler Carl], I was writing a very simple straightforward story about a dude and his cat on an alien game show. I wasn’t anticipating such a complicated overarching political plot. As I started working and going on, that’s kind of what happened. [But] I kind of make it all up as I go along with no outline and no plan. It’s how I prefer to write. Because of that, I have to keep track, or I simply wouldn’t be able to make it work. It’s like doodling on a giant canvas.”

“I’ll start writing something and discover, ‘Oh, I need to know about the Queen’s corgis,’ for example. Then I’ll find a Wikipedia article or a short documentary on YouTube and I’ll watch it while I’m sitting in bed.” A perfect example was a Patreon choice for the setting of book six. “They picked Cuba of all the countries in the world for the characters to land in. I knew nothing about Cuba. I had to get books. I had to watch hours of YouTube videos, researching everything.” (Goodreads)

3. ‘Powerless’ (November 7, 2023)

Author: Lauren Roberts
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

What It’s About: In the kingdom of Ilya, the powerful Elites rule over those without supernatural abilities. Paedyn Gray is an Ordinary who has survived by pretending to possess psychic powers, but after saving Prince Kai Azer, she’s thrust into the Purging Trials, which is a brutal competition designed to showcase the Elites. Her growing attraction to Kai becomes particularly dangerous when discovery of her true identity could mean death. Simon & Schuster published the traditionally published edition in November 2023 after Roberts had initially self-published the novel.

Lauren Roberts says of the Powerless concept: “One day, I had a shower thought. It was nothing profound, but I really thought, ‘What if I do a Uno reverse card on the chosen one trope, and instead of our main character being the one to find these powers and save the kingdom, she’s the only one who’s powerless and is surrounded by people who do have these abilities?’ That was the first little nugget of inspiration.” (MichiganDaily)

“I always like to say that Powerless is a mix between Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen and The Hunger Games. Red Queen was one of the first books I remember reading, which is why I love fantasy.” (PublishersWeekly.com)

4. ‘Once Upon a Broken Heart’ (September 28, 2021)

Author: Stephanie Garber
Publisher: Flatiron Books

What It’s About: Evangeline Fox has always believed in true love and happy endings—until the man she loves is about to marry someone else. Desperate to stop the wedding, she strikes a bargain with Jacks, the mysterious and dangerous Prince of Hearts. His price seems simple enough: three kisses, delivered whenever and wherever he chooses. Evangeline soon discovers, however, that making a deal with an immortal can have consequences she never imagined.

Stephanie Garber says: “I was feeling heartsick when I started this book, so I wanted to write a story about heartbreak, and the desperate lengths that people will go to because of broken hearts, and because of love.” PublishersWeekly.com

“Once Upon A Broken Heart is set in the same universe as Caraval, but I really wanted to make sure this book could be read without reading the Caraval series. It was a bit of a tricky thing to balance because I knew some readers would enter into this book already knowing one of my main characters—Jacks—while others would be meeting him for the very first time, and I really wanted to write a book that would appeal to both. It was definitely a challenge to do this, but it was an exciting one and I can’t wait to see how both sets of readers respond to this story.” (TheNerdDaily)

5. ‘Alchemised’ (September 23, 2025)

Author: SenLinYu
Publisher: Del Rey

What It’s About: In this dark fantasy debut, Helena Marino is a healer with missing memories who has survived a devastating war. Imprisoned in a decaying mansion, she’s placed in the custody of a powerful necromancer charged with uncovering the secrets buried inside her mind. As Helena attempts to reconstruct her past, she discovers that both her captor and the war that destroyed her world are far more complicated than they initially appear.

SenLinYu says: “Alchemised is a bit of a genre-bending gothic war novel about a healer with amnesia kept prisoner in a deteriorating mansion while her captors try to discover what secrets her memory might be hiding, both from herself and from them. It’s a nonlinear story that focuses on aspects of war that tend to be written out of the narrative.”

“With Alchemised, the question was morality in war, exploring all the ethical greyness that tends to be swept aside to create a cleaner good vs. evil narrative in real-world reporting, literature and other media. The initial question I wrestled with was the ethical trolley problem that spies represent: the question of what’s an acceptable loss or atrocity to maintain a cover? That was where I started. But then, in the process of delving into the brutality of war without all the gilding and lionizing of traditional heroism, the premise evolved into questioning how societies make heroes.” (GrimDarkMagazine)