Teen Adventure Suspense Set in a Fantastical Medieval World

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Adventure
• Fantasy
• Suspense
• Medieval time period
• Teen books
• Read-alikes for John Flanagan
  

Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta
YA F MARCHETT
Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who was a child when the royal family of Lumatere was brutally murdered and replaced by an imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a surviving royal child and a way to regain the throne of Lumatere.

The Prophecy
By Hilari Bell
YA F BELL
Guided by the words of a prophecy, Prince Perryndon, who loves books more than swords, sets out to slay the black dragon that is destroying his kingdom.

The Thief
By Megan Whalen Turner
YA F TURNER Attolia #1
Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone.

The Demon King
By Cinda Williams Chima
YA F CHIMA Seven Re #1
Relates the intertwining fates of former street gang leader Han Alister and headstrong Princess Raisa, as Han takes possession of an amulet that once belonged to an evil wizard and Raisa uncovers a conspiracy in the Grey Wolf Court.

Heroes of the Valley
By Jonathan Stroud
YA F STROUD
When young Halli Sveinsson takes one of his practical jokes too far, he is forced to leave the House of Svein and go on a hero's quest where he encounters highway robbers, terrifying monsters, and a girl who may be as fearless as he is.

Graceling
By Kristin Cashore
YA F CASHORE
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Grave Mercy
By Robin Lafevers
YA F LAFEVERS
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.

Teen Chick-lit

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• Teen titles
• Chick-lit

I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend
By Cora Harrison
YA F HARRISON
In a series of journal entries, Jenny Cooper describes her stay with cousin Jane Austen in the 1790s, and her entrance into Jane's world of beautiful dresses, dances, secrets, gossip, and romance.

I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You
By Ally Carter
YA F CARTER Gallaghe #1
Cammie Morgan, who attends the spy school The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, can speak fourteen different languages, hack CIA computer codes, and kill a man seven different ways, but she is ill-prepared when she falls in love with an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl.

Cupidity
By Caroline Goode
YA F GOODE
When the gods of Mount Olympus send Cupid to an Ohio high school to help make the dreams of seventeen-year-old Laura Sweeney come true, things get a bit out of control when the old matchmaking tricks go awry.

How Not to Spend Your Senior Year
By Cameron Dokey
YA F DOKEY
After her father testifies against a major criminal and her family must enter the witness protection program, Jo O'Connor must begin living under a new identity, and finds something strange has happened to her old one.

Enthusiasm
By Polly Shulman
YA F SHULMAN
Julie and Ashleigh, high school sophomores and Jane Austen fans, seem to fall for the same Mr. Darcy-like boy and struggle to hide their true feelings from one another while rehearsing for a school musical.

Adventure for Adults

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• Adventure

The Tourist
By Olen Steinhauer
F STEINHAU
Milo Weaver works a desk job with the CIA but happens to interrogate a man being held as an assassin known as the “Tiger," who is then found dead in his cell. Then Milo pays a visit to a colleague from their time together in black ops, who is then found dead in her apartment. Next Milo is on vacation with his family and he gets a call from his superior giving him a "go" code and Milo sets off on the run. Milo has to figure out what's going on while Homeland security and the CIA itself are trying to bring him in.

Thunderhead
By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
F PRESTON
Archaeologist Nora Kelly receives a mysterious letter written by her father who 16 years earlier disappeared into the deserts of the Southwest on an expedition to discover the location of Quivira—the Anasazi Indians’ lost city of gold. Now Nora embarks on the same quest hoping to discover what happened to her father.

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
By Ben Macintyre
940.5486 MAC
An extraordinary account of the most successful deception—and certainly the strangest—ever carried out in World War II, one that changed the prospects for an Allied victory. The purpose of the plan—code named Operation Mincemeat—was to deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose.

Upbeat, Funny Chick-lit

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• Humor
• Chick-lit

Sushi for Beginners
By Marian Keyes
F KEYES
Depicts the lives of three women in the fashion trade, exploring the trials and tribulations as well as the happiness and joy of true friends in the fast-paced worlds of love and career.

Queen of Babble
By Meg Cabot
F CABOT Queen of #1
Lizzie Nichols discovers that her inability to keep her mouth shut has landed her in hot water when she aggravates her unfaithful boyfriend, is stranded in London, and takes a job as a bartender for a catered wedding at a French chateau.

Faking It
By Jennifer Crusie
ROMANCE CRUISE
Matilda Goodnight and Davy Dempsey are both trying to get the upper hand with gold-digging Clea Lewis, but they forge a temporary alliance to take on an inept art collector, an exasperated hitman, and a seductive femme fatale.

Bridget Jones’s Diary
By Helen Fielding
F FIELDING
The daily chronicle of a 30-something single English woman who is convinced her life would be perfect if she could lose weight, stop smoking and develop "Inner Poise.".

Sarcastic Fiction

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• Sarcasm or wit
• Science fiction or fantasy
• Clean reads
• Teen books
  
• A dash of romance

The Thief
By Megan Whalen Turner
YA F TURNER Attolia #1
Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone. This is a witty fantasy with an awesome protagonist. (There’s some romance later in the series but not in the first book.)

The Angel Experiment
By James Patterson
YA F PATTERSO Maximum #1
After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "birdkids," who are the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to understand their own origins and purpose. This is scifi with a snarky narrator, adventure, and some romance.

Ruby Red
By Kerstin Gier
YA F GIER Ruby Red #1
Sixteen-year-old Gwyneth discovers that she, rather than her well-prepared cousin, carries a time-travel gene, and soon she is journeying with Gideon, who shares the gift, through historical London trying to discover whom they can trust. This is a fun time travel novel with a dash of romance.

The Ruins of Gorlan
By John Flanagan
YA F FLANAGAN Ranger’s #1
When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected by battleschool, he becomes the reluctant apprentice to the mysterious Ranger Halt, and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger. This is adventurous fantasy with good humor and sarcasm; later books in the series have some romance as well.

Great Fantasy Selections

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• Fantasy

A Game of Thrones
By George R.R. Martin
SCI-FI MARTIN
The aristocratic Stark family faces its ultimate challenge in the onset of a generation-long winter, the poisonous plots of the rival Lannisters, the emergence of the Neverborn demons, and the arrival of barbarian hordes.

Mistborn
By Brandon Sanderson
SCI-FI SANDERSO
Experiencing an epiphany within the most daunting prison of the monstrous Lord Ruler, half-Skaa Kelsier finds himself taking on the powers of a Mistborn, and teams up with ragged orphan Vin in a desperate plot to save their world.

Stardust
By Neil Gaiman
SCI-FI GAIMAN
Living in a Victorian countryside town overshadowed by an imposing stone barrier, Tristran is compelled to retrieve a fallen star for the woman he loves and crosses to the wondrous other side of the barrier, where he encounters dangerous rivals for the star.

Sea of Trolls
By Nancy Farmer
YA F FARMER Trolls #1
After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.

Small Gods: A Novel of Discworld
By Terry Pratchett
SCI-FI PRATCHET Discworl #13
Brutha, a simple man leading a quiet life tending his garden, finds his life irrevocably changed when his god, speaking to him through a tortoise, sends him on a mission of peace.

Biographies for Teen Guys

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• Biographies
• Books for teen guys

A Long Way Gone
By Ishmael Beah
YA BIO BEAH
In a heart-wrenching, candid autobiography, a human rights activist offers a firsthand account of war from the perspective of a former child soldier, detailing the violent civil war that wracked his native Sierra Leone and the government forces that transformed a gentle young boy into a killer as a member of the army.

Leaving Glorytown
By Eduardo F. Calcines
YA BIO CALCINES
The author, a child of Fidel Castro's Cuba, recounts his boyhood and chronicles the conditions that led him to leave behind his beloved extended family and his home for a chance at a better life in the United States.

Rocket Boys
By Homer H. Hickman
BIO HICKMAN
The author traces the boyhood enthusiasm for rockets that eventually led to a career at NASA, describing how he built model rockets in the family garage in West Virginia, inspired by the launch of the Soviet satellite "Sputnik." Film October Sky is based on this memoir.

Bad Boy
By Walter Dean Myers
YA BIO MYERS
The author relates his experiences growing up in Harlem, the home of Sugar Ray Robinson and Langston Hughes, in the 1940s and 1950s.

Caught by the Sea
By Gary Paulsen
YA BIO PAULSEN
The author of Hatchet and other teen adventure novels, tells about his lifelong love of sailing, boats he has owned, and the storms, sharks, and peaceful lagoons he has experienced on his voyages.