10 Fresh Urban Fantasy Books and Series

Witches are few and far between in the UK, which is why Mika Moon and her group of witches meet only so often — safety is the priority, and too many witches in one place tend to draw attention. Even though Mika is used to the loneliness, a big part of her rejects it, and she posts videos on a YouTube-like site where she shares magic tips, pretending to be a witch. But someone sees her for what she really is and invites her to a house out in the middle of nowhere to tutor three young witches into their magic. Somehow, she agrees and finds with the inhabitants of the house — especially a grumpy librarian — a family like none she’s ever experienced. But the transition from being a loner orphan witch to a loved one isn’t easy, and she’ll have to make some changes to adjust.

Mandanna also has A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, which, though it shares some similarities with The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, isn’t listed as a follow-up.

In Demons of Good and Evil, the 17th in The Hollows series, witch-born demon Rachel Morgan has her work cut out for her as the protector of the paranormal citizens of Cincinnati. She feels this especially well once she’s framed for murder and the vampire leaders in DC get involved. Now Rachel and her friends are in hiding, and to make it out alive, she’ll need to make an unsavory deal.

To start at the beginning, pick up Dead Witch Walking.

This is the first in McGuire’s bestselling and award-nominated InCryptid series. It follows Verity Price, who is part of a family that protects cryptids from humans and vice versa. She’s not really into the family business, despite her cryptologist training, instead opting for a life of professional ballroom dancing. But then the Price family’s opps — the Covenant of St. George — start sending monsters her way, and now she’s got to deal with a Covenant boy, strange lizard men, and rumors of a dragon beneath the city.

The 13th in this series, Aftermarket Afterlife, just came out on March 5th.

This award-nominated series has all the blood feuds, magic, and martial arts you could hope for. In it, the Green Bone clans used to protect the island Kekon and its valuable and rare magical jade. The Kaul family — a crime syndicate — is one of those families, and once the tensions get too high between them and their greatest rivals, there is open violence in the streets.

Jade City is the first book.

Lobizona is the first of the Wolves of No World trilogy and follows Manuela “Manu” Azul, who is living as an undocumented immigrant in Miami, Florida, to evade her father’s Argentine crime family. But then her adoptive grandmother is attacked and her mother is arrested by ICE, which finally allows her to move freely in the world. As she starts to investigate her past, she learns of a secret world full of Argentine folklore and how, for some families, every seventh daughter is born a bruja, and every seventh son a lobizón (or werewolf).

Here, Cristina and Clement Trudeau, two 16-year-old twins, are descendants of a powerful magical family in New Orleans. They used to be close, but now they find their family in shambles: the talented Cristina has given up her magic because of a tragedy, their father is dead, their mother is cursed, and Clement is trying to fill an emotional void with random hookups. But then they realize someone is after their family, and that it has something to do with a woman who was killed 30 years ago. If they can finally come together, they can save their family, and New Orleans from having another massacre.

There’s a second book (Blood Justice) that’s due to come out on April 23rd this year, but it’s not clear if the two books will be a duology or part of a series.

This urban fantasy series also counts as an Arthurian retelling. In it, 16-year-old Bree Matthews wants to get away from home after her mother dies in an accident, and UNC-Chapell Hill’s residential program for bright high schoolers provides the perfect opportunity to do just that. But then she sees a magical attack on her first night there, which leads to her learning of a secret society full of people called Legendbord, who are descendants of King Arthur’s knights. After her own magic is unlocked and she learns that there was magic involved with her mother’s death, she infiltrates the society to find out more. Thing is, there’s a war coming, and she’ll have to decide whose side she’s on and how to use her power.

So far, there are two books out in this series, which follows 18-year-old Gu Miyoung, who has a secret: she’s a nine-tailed fox demon (gumiho) who eats men’s energy to survive. With all the evil men in the world — and people’s lack of belief in folklore these days — hunting is made super easy in the big city of Seoul, Korea. But maybe she had life too easy, because she decides to save a human boy from a goblin in the forest one day, and it makes her lose her fox bead, aka, her gumiho soul. As she and the boy she saved, Jihoon, grow closer, she’ll have to make a choice between him or having her immortal soul back.