Five Witches and Wizards to Fall in Love With

Heroine Sophie is deeply unimpressed by the notorious Wizard Howl when she first stomps into his moving castle and makes herself his unwanted housekeeper. He’s a slob, he’s a show-off, he seems literally heartless, and he fills the castle with green slime whenever he falls into a dramatic sulk. However, across the course of Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, Sophie isn’t the only one who falls under the spell of his charm. Despite—or because of?— their constant bickering, her blunt practicality turns out to be a perfect match for his hilariously over-the-top personality. I read this first when I was a tween, and I still remember how happily I sighed over their ending! This is one of those books that really rewards re-reads; reading it out loud to my own tween a few years ago, I loved it all over again.

Wizard Howl may have had a worrying reputation, but that’s nothing to the dark menace of the wizard known as the Dragon in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted. The nearby villagers rely on his protection against the (genuinely terrifying) magic of the nearby forest, but they pay a steep price for it. Every seven years, he arrives in the village to claim one of their daughters for unknown purposes, never to be seen again. So, heroine Agnieszka is horrified when she’s chosen—but it turns out that there’s a lot more to the man and the situation than any of the villagers are aware. 

The Dragon may be powerful, cold in his initial demeanor, and old enough to have forgotten most of his social graces, but he’s also absolutely fascinating, and—of course!—he has a fantastic library of resources for a heroine who’s never had the chance for a magical education of her own. Like so many great Beauty & the Beast retellings from Jane Eyre onwards, smart and determined Agnieszka not only claims the Dragon’s heart but finds her own power and independence by the end of the story, allowing their romance to reach an equal footing for a perfectly satisfying resolution.

Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series of paranormal romances starts out with two (very fun) novels starring powerful, shapeshifting men who fall for magically weaker female partners. I ate both of those up—but I cheered out loud when I saw that book 3, Serpent’s Kiss, would star Carling, the sinister sorceress and vampire queen who’d intimidated everyone in those earlier books, including all of those powerful alpha heroes. 

This book starts out with Carling musing thoughtfully (and without any regret), “I am a bad woman, of course.” I was all-in from that moment onwards! Carling’s shapeshifter love interest has badass powers of his own, but there’s never any question that her cunning and her magical prowess put her on a whole different level. 

And speaking of cunning…

The heroine of Colleen Cowley’s novella Into the Bargain doesn’t even know the hero’s name for most of the story—because in this clever retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, he is the magically-gifted trickster who supports her quest to find financial security through an advantageous marriage (in this case, to his obnoxious employer). However, the more that heroine Pen Novak discovers about her mysterious co-conspirator, the more clearly she realizes that she’s been planning a future with the wrong man… and she has more options than she’d previously realized. Better yet, the right partner (with or without money) will support her in all of them.

It’s a rare story that can successfully combine a delightful fantasy romance with a convincing feminist awakening and a good dash of class awareness, too. I loved it!

In Lana Harper’s Payback’s a Witch, heroine Emmy has no interest in ever moving back to her magical hometown…until fellow witch Talia Abramov saunters into the bar where Emmy’s sitting and sweeps her (and every reader) off her feet. Talia is the fabulous and confident scion of a family universally feared for their affinity for dark magic, dangerous ghosts, and all shades of sinister power, and she projects that image in her every dramatic move. She and Emmy first band together as part of a plot for shared (and very righteous) revenge, but soon, fascinating and vibrant Talia becomes far more important to Emmy than the poor, clueless sap who’s about to get everything he deserves for having mistreated both of them in the past. I’d happily dance with Talia Avramov in a haunted house any night!