Looking for some young adult books to read for St. Patrick's Day? Check out this fantastic list of Celtic inspired fantasy.
PEACE AT ANY COST.
Princess Charlotte’s entire life had been planned.
Right up until the moment her fiancé is kidnapped on her wedding day, sending the entire kingdom hurtling toward disaster.
Charlie has never left the protective grounds of the castle, but to save her intended, she’ll trade her crown for a sword and forge into dangerous rebel lands alongside her fiancé’s arrogant older brother, Logan.
Logan thinks she’s a spoiled princess. She’s about to prove him wrong.
But each step deeper into the enemy’s world confirms nothing is what it seems. Not the love that was supposed to be easy. Not the allies she’s supposed to trust. Not even the outlaws she’s been raised to fear.
Faced with brutal truths and the looming threat of war, Charlie must find her inner strength to not only fight back, but to trust her heart—no matter where it leads.
From naive princess to Warrior Queen, The Lochlann Treaty will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. A sweeping fantasy for fans of Red Queen, Outlander, and Throne of Glass.
In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword—representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own…
When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father—and it’s worth nearly four million dollars.
This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home. Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies—through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny.
Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives: they are determined that she know only contentment.
But Sorcha’s joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift—by staying silent. If she speaks before she completes the quest set to her by the Fair Folk and their queen, the Lady of the Forest, she will lose her brothers forever.
When Sorcha is kidnapped by the enemies of Sevenwaters and taken to a foreign land, she is torn between the desire to save her beloved brothers, and a love that comes only once. Sorcha despairs at ever being able to complete her task, but the magic of the Fair Folk knows no boundaries, and love is the strongest magic of them all.
One stormy summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hair clips and jewellery, but soon it’s clear that Rose has lost something bigger; something she won’t talk about.
Then Olive meets three wild, mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel and Rowan. Like Rose, they’re mourning losses – and holding tight to secrets.
When they discover the ancient spellbook, full of hand-inked charms to conjure back lost things, they realise it might be their chance to set everything right. Unless it’s leading them towards secrets that were never meant to be found.
Life and time itself might be forever changed for them both. If you root for The Bard in The Witcher, Fae Song is your next binge.
The ancient Imperial trade road snaking toward the horizon would have daunted many but to Gwynn its dust tasted of freedom.
Her days would no longer be ruled by endless lessons. She had bested the greatest bards of Balahar and was on her own, free to follow the road into the green. That is until she heard the exhausted hoofbeats of the dark warhorse bearing its dying rider into her camp.
The dazzling realm of the Fae Royal Court of Heralith awaits them if only she can muster her skills both learned and hidden.
Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
Modern girl versus magical world
Maya is a lot of things: an eighteen-year-old taking care of her mom, a server working double shifts to pay their bills, and hell-bent on keeping her family together. Becoming a changeling—a human stolen from her home by the old Irish fae—doesn’t fit. She needs to get back. But how can she escape another world?
Daire, her kidnapper’s little brother, comes to Maya with an answer. This sheltered prince has the power to take people between Maya’s realm and his. He promises to take her home if she helps cure a curse that will kill him in a few months.
It would be easy if it weren’t for the ancient kings who want Daire dead and Maya trapped to keep their endangered race hidden. Will Maya’s interference topple centuries of protected isolation? For her freedom, she’s willing to find out.
The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she’s trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew.
Life in real-world Atlanta isn’t always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice’s handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she’ll need to use everything she’s learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head . . . literally.
One kiss will change everything…
As one of Faraway High’s best and brightest, Brea Vardan has her future planned down to the color of her dorm room sheets. But when her sweet sixteen party turns into a nightmare, all her meticulous plans distort into dreams…until an unexpected kiss gives her a second chance at life.
Now instead of scoring A’s, Brea battles to stay awake as she searches for the identity of the one who cursed her, plunging deeper into a hidden world of terrifying mythological monsters. With a target on her head and a less than charming prince at her side, Brea must unravel the secrets of the past before someone puts her to sleep for good.
A cursed fae prince. A lonely human lass. A magical bond that can’t be broken…
Aislinn…
All Aislinn Morgan wants is to live a peaceful life with her sister in the beautiful highlands of Scotland. When a hike on the Isle of Skye goes horribly awry and the sisters are taken to the mythical land of the fae, Aislinn will do anything to protect the only family she has left.
Even bargain with a beastly fae prince.
But the powerful Kieran O’Bairr is no ordinary fae.
He’s dark, dangerous, and devastatingly handsome—and he claims Aislinn is his fated mate.
As the magic of their bond brings them closer together, Aislinn wonders if she can heal his cursed heart… or if his haunting darkness will consume them all.
Kieran…
Fae Prince Kieran O’Bairr has spent the last one hundred years in a self-imposed exile for a crime that haunts his every waking moment. The isolation has only hardened his cursed heart and an unexpected burden cripples his once unmatched power.
The breathtaking Aislinn Morgan is a complication he doesn’t want.
But his longing for the golden-haired lass is undeniable, her kissable lips a temptation he can’t resist.
Aislinn is his fated mate.
And one desperate, stolen kiss will be his undoing.
The Dark Realm (Feyland #1) by Anthea Sharp
WHEN A GAME…
Feyland is the most immersive computer game ever designed, and Jennet Carter is the first to play the prototype. But she doesn’t suspect the virtual world is close enough to touch — or that she’ll be battling for her life against the Dark Queen of the faeries.
TURNS REAL…
Tam Linn is the perfect hero — in-game. Too bad the rest of his life is seriously flawed. The last thing he needs is rich-girl Jennet prying into his secrets, insisting he’s the only one who can help her.
WINNING IS EVERYTHING…
Together, Jennet and Tam enter the Dark Realm of Feyland, only to discover that the entire human world is in danger. Pushed to the limit of their abilities, they must defeat the Dark Queen… before it’s too late.
Mckenna’s never thought much of her nightmares, but on her seventeenth birthday, a vivid dream of burning at the stake awakens her dormant abilities, thrusting her into a world where faeries are real, spirits hold a grudge, and a High Priestess obsessed with a 16th-century prophecy is tracking her every move.
Now, her overprotective dads, Seán and Andre, are forced to tell her the truth—they know who her birth mother is, and her life is not the surrogate story she’s always been told. Abigail, Mckenna’s mom, is some sort of mystic, and Mckenna a Wise One.
Whatever the hell that means.
Once upon a time, a girl from our world found a gate to the Faerie realm…All Isobel wants is a quiet place to read, but apparently that’s too much to ask. She only needs to make it through one last summer with her broken family before she can leave for university and get on with her life. At least she has her books and the solitude of the woods.
But there are wolves in these woods.
Caught out in the forest after dark, Isobel is pursued by a disturbingly intelligent pack of wolves. When the grizzly bear who rescues her turns out to be a cursed fae prince, she realizes her life isn’t the only thing in danger. She could lose her heart.
Trapped by the wolves at the prince’s home in Faerie, Isobel tries to unravel the mystery behind the surly prince’s scars. Because time is running out for the castle’s inhabitants, and if Isobel can’t find a way to break the spell and save the prince from the Unseelie Queen, she may lose everything she’s come to love.
Modern witchcraft blends with ancient Celtic mythology in an epic clash of witches and gods, perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy and A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.
Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope with her somatic OCD; the aftermath of being outed as bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the return of her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really matters to her is ascending and finally, finally becoming a full witch-plans that are complicated when another coven, rumored to have a sordid history with black magic, arrives in town with premonitions of death. Dayna immediately finds herself at odds with the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the granddaughter of their coven leader.
And then a witch turns up murdered at a local sacred site, along with the blood symbol of the Butcher of Manchester-an infamous serial killer whose trail has long gone cold. The killer’s motives are enmeshed in a complex web of witches and gods, and Dayna and Meiner soon find themselves at the center of it all. If they don’t stop the Butcher, one of them will be next.
With razor-sharp prose and achingly real characters, E. Latimer crafts a sweeping, mesmerizing story of dark magic and brutal mythology set against a backdrop of contemporary Ireland that’s impossible to put down.
It’s survival of the fittest, but first you have to fit in.
Shae is sure the icy rage that eats away at her is driving away her friends and pulling her closer to the wrong boy. But, as her protected world unravels, she discovers the violent supernatural world that lurks in her quiet hometown and the ancient feuds that threaten to destroy both her friends and her family. To save those she loves, Shae must succumb to her own fury, but at what cost?
Dream of Darkness (The Rise of the Light #1) by H.M. Gooden
Cat McLean is a sixteen year old girl who moves to a new town with her older sister Vanessa. After a near-fatal car accident, Cat wakes to find that she can see auras and heal others. But she also discovers an ancient evil that means to destroy her new town of Valleyview. She must join forces with her sister and a new friend to defeat it, or die trying. Will she learn how to harness her new powers before the darkness comes for them? Or will she succumb to the darkness she fears?
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
One girl’s nightmare is this girl’s faery tale.
She’s a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.
She’s a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she’s leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.
She’s a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.
She’s a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother’s murder—but she’ll have to save the world first.
Seventeen-year-old Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family, and her family’s graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don’t always stay dead.
The risen corpses are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?
Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.
This article was adapted (with permission) from R.L. Medina's post. If you'd like to see a list with more adult and new adult options, give hers a look!
