Your weird uncle. Your brain-rotted niece. Your financially more successful than you cousin. What do all of these family members have in common? They’re the last people you want to be stuck sitting with around the Thanksgiving dinner table. When you’re tired of your real family (who isn’t at times?) you can always find a better one in the pages of a book. Though not related by blood, these fantasy families are thicker than water. Here are the 10 best fantasy books with found families, which you can pretend are your family while shut your eyes and ignore your grandparents questioning when you’re gonna have children. WHEN THE ECONOMY ALLOWS, GRANDMA. CHILL.
The House In The Cerulean Sea
Fed up with your boring, non-magical family? The House In The Cerulean by TJ Klune offers you the promise of a supernatural found family instead! It’s the story of Linus Baker, a painfully single bureaucrat working for The Department In Charge of Magical Youth – which is 1000% less whimsical than it sounds. Though most of his day to day involves paperwork and existential ennui, things change for Linus when he’s assigned to monitor a small orphanage in a titular seaside house, where a group of magical children live with their charming caretaker. Linus goes to find protocol violations, and ends with a family instead. Looking for slow burn romance between two middle-aged gay men who become surrogate fathers to demons and aliens? House In The Cerulean Sea is the pinnacle found family fantasy novel – for when you need to fantasize about ditching yours.
Six of Crows
The dark fantasy world of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows might not seem like the type of place where families are found, but when people are drawn together for morally grey reasons, found family is what you get. In the steampunk city of Ketterdam, Kaz Brekker works as a lone wolf street thief. After he’s hired to break the high fantasy equivalent of Albert Hoffman out of the high fantasy equivalent of Alcatraz, Kaz realizes that he’s gonna need a team. In assembling his Ocean’s Eleven (well, Six) he and his heist crew discover that their bonds go deeper than a mutual love of cash. Through the perils of the job, a hardened group of criminals are reforged into an even tougher found family, with bonds are tighter than their target’s security. Fair warning, this found family gets a little incestuous at times, but when you’re not blood-related, and spilling it on the daily, these things happen.
Legends and Lattes
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree is story of Orc mercenary Viv, who decided to put her adventuring days behind her and settle down to start a small business. After converting a stable into a ramshackle coffee shop, Viv sets out to make a mint. That will be difficult, considering her untraveled clientele don’t know what coffee is. Viv has a marketing problem, and an artistic succubus named Tandri may have a few creative solutions. Like any group of service industry workers, these high fantasy baristas are brought together by the daily grind – pun intended. And of course, some of them end up dating – another all too common industry quirk.
Kill Six Billion Demons
Tom Parkinson Morgan’s Kill Six Billion Demons may not have cozy found family branding, but peer beneath this webcomic’s tough skin and you’ll find squishy emotional bonds beneath. Before she was kidnapped by a runaway god and blessed with stolen divine power, Allison Ruth was a barista attempting to get through business school. After being spirited away to Throne, the demon-haunted city at the center of the multiverse, she realizes she has more pressing concerns. While Allison takes a little time to adapt to her alien home, she hits her stride cohabitating with her angelic martial arts teacher, her fanfiction writing devil girlfriend, a dark spirit she beat in a drinking contest, and a former servant she freed from an evil empress. If she’s going to kill the god currently attempting to break the multiverse in half, she’ll need all the support she can get.
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Like Six of Crows, Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora is the story of a found family whose moral compass points anywhere but Lawful Good. The Gentleman Bastards are a group of con-artists, flim-flammers from across the realm brought together by their complementary criminal skillsets. Their newest member is Locke, a young street thief who rises through the ranks to become the group’s leader. While most families bond over cookouts and game nights, Locke and Co. cement their ties by cutting purse strings. As each successful job beings Locke and his gang closer together, this found family disguised as a heist novel proves that not only is their honor among thieves, but love as well.
Raybearer
Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko is the story of Tarisai, a young woman who longs for family the way an owl longs for a lost graduation cap. Raised by an absent mother known as The Lady, Tarisai’s life changes when she’s sent away to the city of Aritsar to serve on the Crown Prince’s Council – which is made up of eleven children. While taking political council from middle schoolers seems like a surefire way to lead your realm to ruin, the opportunity offers Tarisai a chance at the family she has been so long denied. Things get complicated when The Lady reveals an ulterior motive for Tarisai’s move – Tarisai has been magically compelled to murder the Crown Prince, which will kill her found family dreams in equal measure. In order to stay by the side of her surrogate siblings, Tarisai will have to turn her back on blood – while trying not to spill any in the process.
One Piece
While not commonly recognized as such, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece is absolutely a found family story, and anyone who says otherwise can walk the plank. Monkey D. Luffy is a scrappy young pirate captain with delusions of grandeur, stretching his arms towards glory as far as his rubbery body allows. In order to claim the title of Pirate King, Luffy rustles up a crew to find the One Piece – a fabulous treasure said to lie at the end of the treacherous Grand Line. By teaming up with a three-bladed swordsman, a cat burglar, a butt-kicking chef, a dude with a slingshot, a weird little reindeer doctor etc., Luffy finds more than an A+ pirate crew, he finds a family to put the wind in his emotional sails. They laugh, they cry, they share meals, they fight, and most importantly, they’re willing to give their lives to pursue the vain dreams of their most unhinged member – what else are found families for?
The Raven Cycle
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater is the story of Blue Sargent, who stands around graveyards with her clairvoyant mother looking out for those soon to die. Families, right? One day, Blue spies a “Raven Boy” named Gansey, a student from the hoity toity private school nearby. Drawn to the charismatic kid, Blue soon finds herself wrapped up in Gansey and friends’ hunt for a dead Welsh king – who is rumored to grant a favor to those that discover his body. Spurred on by a psychic adventure, Gansey and The Raven Boys’ uneasy alliance turns into complete Stand By Me siblinghood – sniffing out corpses will do that do you.
Every Heart A Doorway
While writing Every Heart A Doorway, Seanan McGuire should have considered “Narnia’s Rejects” as an alternative title. The novel takes place in a boarding school for children who have been kicked out of magical worlds – reverse isekai’ed, to put it in anime terms. Run by the enigmatic Eleanor West, the school is an attempt to provide lost children with a safe haven – a failed attempt. After the arrival of newly-rejected Nancy, a boarding school student named Sumi is found dead, with her hands cut off. The surviving children band together to solve the murder mystery, hoping that doing so will help them return to their lost worlds – and lend a hand to Sumi in the process.
Between Two Fires
While some may accuse me of going out on a grimdark limb, I believe Christopher Pullman’s Between Two Fires is 1000% a found family story. It’s literally Medieval The Last of Us. In plague ridden France, the Dark Ages have gotten a whole lot darker now that Heaven and Hell are using Earth as the battleground for Armageddon. After a botched robbery, disgraced knight turned brigand Tomas meets a young girl named Delphine – who claims to have the power to end the End Times. She asks Tomas to escort her to Pope Clement VI in Avignon, so she can convince the church of her divinity. While trekking across an Inferno-cursed world, Tomas and Delphine go from reluctant co-travelers to a bonafide surrogate father/daughter pair. When your adopted kid may just be the second coming of Christ, you’ve gotta do what you gotta do to protect her.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
