If A Darker Shade of Magic, Vicious, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue proved that fantasy doesn’t have to stay in one lane, these 13 authors like V.E. Schwab write with the same genre-defying ambition.
V.E. Schwab (also published as Victoria Schwab for younger audiences) is one of the most versatile fantasy writers working today. Her Shades of Magic trilogy imagines four parallel Londons connected by rare magic users — one thriving, one dying, one dead, one ours. Vicious deconstructs superhero mythology with two former friends turned superpowered enemies, neither of whom qualifies as a hero. And The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a woman cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets, spanning 300 years of art, love, and loneliness.
What connects these wildly different books is Schwab’s obsession with identity, memory, and what it means to leave a mark on the world. She writes characters who define themselves against the systems trying to contain them. Her prose is clean and precise — no purple passages, no padding — and her plots move with the efficiency of someone who respects her readers’ time. She’s published over 20 books across middle grade, YA, and adult fiction, and she doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
For more recommendations, explore our guides to best fantasy authors, authors like Neil Gaiman, and best British authors.
Authors Like V.E. Schwab
1. Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows and Schwab’s Vicious share a fundamental approach: morally gray characters operating in worlds where traditional heroism doesn’t apply. Bardugo’s Grishaverse is more traditionally fantasy-flavoured, but her adult novel Ninth House — dark academia at Yale with ghosts and secret societies — sits comfortably alongside Schwab’s genre-crossing work.
Both writers also share the ability to write ensemble casts where every character earns their page time. The Crows in Six of Crows and the cast of A Darker Shade of Magic both feature distinct voices, conflicting motivations, and relationships that drive the plot as much as any external threat.
“No mourners. No funerals.”
Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows
2. Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is the godfather of genre-crossing fantasy. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a quiet, devastating story about memory and childhood that could sit on a literary fiction shelf. American Gods is a road trip novel about immigrant deities. Coraline is a children’s horror classic. Gaiman refuses to be categorized, and Schwab follows in that tradition.
Both writers share a fascination with the spaces between worlds — Gaiman’s London Below in Neverwhere, Schwab’s parallel Londons in Shades of Magic. Both understand that the most interesting fantasy happens at borders and thresholds, where different realities press against each other.
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.”
Neil Gaiman
3. Erin Morgenstern
Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus shares Addie LaRue’s romantic, atmospheric approach to fantasy — both are stories about people trapped in magical competitions they didn’t choose, set against gorgeously rendered historical backdrops. Morgenstern’s prose is more ornate than Schwab’s, but both writers create worlds you want to physically step into.
The Starless Sea pushed Morgenstern further into metafictional territory, exploring underground libraries and the nature of storytelling itself. Like Schwab, Morgenstern writes fantasy that’s more interested in emotional and philosophical questions than in battle scenes or magic systems.
“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it.”
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
4. Alix E. Harrow
Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January is about a girl who discovers that doors between worlds are real, and that her father has been searching for them her entire life. The novel is a love letter to portal fantasy, wrapped in early 20th-century American history and powered by gorgeous prose.
Harrow shares Schwab’s literary sensibility within fantasy. Her Fractured Fables series reimagines fairy tales through a feminist lens, and each novella is precisely crafted. Both writers prove that fantasy can be beautiful and intelligent without sacrificing plot momentum. Harrow’s writing about doors and thresholds directly echoes Schwab’s interest in boundaries between worlds.
“She found every door in the world, and she opened them all.”
Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January
5. Katherine Arden
Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy, starting with The Bear and the Nightingale, is set in medieval Russia and draws on Russian folklore — house spirits, frost demons, and the firebird. Vasya Petrovna can see the spirits that others have forgotten, and her gift puts her in conflict with both the church and a terrifying immortal.
Arden shares Schwab’s ability to ground fantasy in specific historical periods and real cultural traditions. The Winternight Trilogy feels authentically Russian in the way Schwab’s Shades of Magic feels authentically London. Both writers use real-world settings to anchor their magical elements, making the fantasy more convincing because the world around it is solid. If the prose styles of these writers inspire you to refine your own, Grammarly is a practical tool for catching errors during revision.
“In a country called Rus, in a town called Lesnaya Zemlya, there lived a girl called Vasilisa.”
Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale
6. Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is an alternate-history novel about the return of magic to Regency-era England, told with the dry wit and social observation of a Jane Austen novel. At over 800 pages, it’s a commitment, but it’s also one of the most original fantasy novels of the century. Her follow-up, Piranesi, is a mysterious, dreamlike novella about a man living in an impossible house.
Clarke shares Schwab’s interest in how magic intersects with specific historical moments. Both writers create worlds where magic has rules, consequences, and politics. Piranesi in particular echoes Addie LaRue — both are about people trapped in strange existences, finding meaning in isolation.
“Can a magician kill a man by magic? Lord Wellington asked Strange. I suppose a magician might, but a gentleman never could.”
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
7. Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik’s Uprooted draws on Polish folklore to tell a story about a girl chosen to serve a cold sorcerer, and the corrupted forest that threatens their valley. It won the Nebula Award and combines fairy tale structures with genuine darkness and political complexity.
Novik’s Scholomance trilogy takes a completely different approach — sardonic, contemporary in voice despite the fantasy setting, and built around a protagonist with destructive power she refuses to use. Like Schwab, Novik shifts between styles and subgenres with confidence. Both writers treat each book as an opportunity to do something different rather than repeating a formula.
“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.”
Naomi Novik, Uprooted
8. Holly Black
Holly Black’s Book of Night is her first adult novel — a heist story set in a world where shadows can be stolen, manipulated, and used as weapons. The protagonist, Charlie Hall, is a con artist and thief, and the gritty urban fantasy tone is closer to Schwab’s Vicious than to Black’s better-known faerie court novels.
Black’s Folk of the Air trilogy shows her YA range, but Book of Night is where the Schwab comparison is clearest. Both writers create modern, urban-feeling fantasy worlds where the magic is dangerous and the characters are morally compromised. Both also understand that the best fantasy isn’t about good versus evil — it’s about people making impossible choices.
“The thing about shadows is they’re always with you, whether you want them or not.”
Holly Black, Book of Night
9. Peng Shepherd
Peng Shepherd’s The Book of M imagines a world where people’s shadows begin to disappear — and with them, their memories. It’s a post-apocalyptic fantasy that shares Addie LaRue’s preoccupation with memory, identity, and what it means to be remembered. Shepherd’s The Cartographers is a literary thriller about magical maps.
Shepherd shares Schwab’s ability to take a single fantastical concept and explore it from every angle. Both writers ask “what if?” and then follow the implications with intellectual rigour. The Book of M and Addie LaRue both suggest that being forgotten might be the worst fate imaginable, worse even than death.
“What would you give up to remember everything? What would you give up to be remembered?”
Peng Shepherd, The Book of M
10. Charlie Jane Anders
Charlie Jane Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky won the Nebula Award — a novel about a witch and a tech genius who were childhood friends and now find themselves on opposite sides of a war between magic and science. It’s a genre-crossing book in the truest sense, blending fantasy and science fiction into something new.
Anders shares Schwab’s refusal to pick a lane. Her work crosses between fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction with the confidence of a writer who doesn’t see those categories as meaningful boundaries. The City in the Middle of the Night is a sci-fi novel set on a tidally locked planet, completely different from All the Birds but equally ambitious.
“Sometimes the only way to save the world is to make it stranger.”
Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky
11. Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente is one of the most stylistically adventurous writers in speculative fiction. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a children’s portal fantasy with the literary density of an adult novel. Space Opera is a Eurovision-in-space comedy. Radiance is a noir mystery set in an alternate solar system where planets are habitable.
Valente’s range is staggering, and she shares Schwab’s determination to write a different kind of book every time. Her prose is more baroque than Schwab’s — Valente writes sentences that are themselves works of art. For readers who love Schwab’s genre-crossing ambition but want even more stylistic experimentation, Valente is the natural next step.
“Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things.”
Catherynne M. Valente
12. T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. It’s a fairy tale about a princess building a dog out of bones to kill her sister’s abusive husband, and it’s told with dry humor, genuine horror, and deep compassion. Kingfisher writes across horror, fantasy, and romance with the same fluency that defines Schwab’s career.
Kingfisher’s horror novels (The Twisted Ones, The Hollow Places) are genuinely scary. Her Saint of Steel series combines romance and fantasy. Her Paladin books are adventure stories with heart. Like Schwab, she treats genre as a toolkit rather than a cage, picking the right tools for each story.
“It was a very good dog, even though it was made of bones.”
T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone
13. Laini Taylor
Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer is about a librarian obsessed with a lost city that disappeared from human memory two hundred years ago. When he gets the chance to travel there, he discovers the city’s impossible reality — and a girl with blue skin who lives in the sky above it. The imagery is extraordinary, and the love story is as central as the world-building.
Taylor shares Schwab’s ability to create fantasy that’s genuinely romantic without sacrificing complexity. Both Strange the Dreamer and Addie LaRue are love stories set against fantastical backdrops, and both feature protagonists defined by their longing for something beyond ordinary life. Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy is equally worth reading.
“He was a dreamer of dreams, and that had always been his problem.”
Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer