23 Fun and Delightful Light Fantasy Novels

More whimsy ahoy! Maybe you’ve tried to nurture a sourdough starter during the pandemic. If so, it couldn’t have gone much stranger than it did for Sourdough’s Lois, whose starter has a life of its own. This book is an absolutely delightful cautionary tale that has a nuanced take on tradition versus technology.

Food and fantasy often go together. Additionally, many light fantasy novels are off-kilter retellings of well-known fairy tales. Combine those and you get Gingerbread, which takes a retelling to the most oblique angle. It’s an inventive family legacy story inflected by magical realism and a little Hansel and Gretel flavor.

If you’re drawn to the absurd, look no further than The Hike, the story of a normal hike gone very strange and epic. It’s unpredictably weird and viciously funny. You would guess that if you’re an appreciator of Drew Magary’s hilarious annual Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalog.

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer is a kid-friendly gem of weirdness and humor in light fantasy. Mysterious chickens with superpowers. What else do you need to know? This is a heartwarming story with laugh-out-loud lines you’ll want to read to whomever’s sitting next to you.

For a funny fantasy that skews more adult, G.A. Aiken, along with her other pen name Shelly Laurenston, is reliable for fantasy romances that are funny and violent both. In this story, a queen’s prophesied ascent threatens the king’s sons, and some kilt-wearing mountain warriors come to her aid. 

Romantic elements are always a great way to lighten a fantasy world. Wicked Fox uses tropes straight out of K-dramas for extra style and flourish. When you are a nine-tailed fox who devours men’s energy to survive, is contemporary Seoul the best place to remain undiscovered?

More romance, you say? The Lightning-Struck Heart a slow burn, but you probably won’t mind. The adventures of wizard’s apprentice Sam, Gary the hornless gay unicorn, a half-giant named Tiggy, and dreamboat Sir Ryan Foxheart will have you caught up in utter ridiculousness.

Love is an epic fantasy all on its own, isn’t it? Even still, when Genie Lo has to hone her powers to protect the Bay Area from hellspawn from Chinese folklore, she’s going to need all the help she can get from the mythological Monkey King incarnate.

Tying folklore to the contemporary world is another great way to inject lightness in the fantasy genre. Muse Squad does this in a heartfelt and heroic manner. When a Cuban American girl discovers she’s one of the nine Muses of Greek mythology, she learns to use her magic to inspire and empower others.

Learning to wield newfound powers is also a running theme in light fantasy novels. Heroine Complex tells that story in a world with superheroes. When Evie Tanaka discovers it’s not only her childhood best friend who has superpowers, can she save the day against the threat of demons? Can she and also find love in the process?

The above book highlights the growth of the friendship between two women, which is also a theme in Race the Sands. Tamra and Raia team up to win a competition racing fearsome monsters called kehoks, lest they doom themselves to the undesirable fate of becoming monsters themselves.

If fewer fearsome monsters are desired in your light fantasy, there could hardly be fantasy lighter than The Tea Dragon Society. This graphic novel about adorable dragons who sprout tea from their horns is soothing, gentle, and all about friendship and memory.

Does your mind palace goe to freakier places than adorable dragons? Reverie might be the book for you. When Kane gets dragged into strange worlds that materialize out of nowhere, he realizes he has to figure out what is the force behind these altered realities. It’s a wildly imaginative queer YA fantasy.

If you want more queer YA fantasy, how about a graphic novel fantasy that is so light it’s literally awash in pastel tones? Sure, there is an evil magician who casts a spell that needs to be undone, but it’s also a graphic novel of lesbian werewolves hanging out in a coffee shop.

For more light fantasy featuring food service, A Dash of Trouble is a charming middle grade novel in which Leonora Logroño learns the women in her family running their bakery are also brujas. The magic runs in Leonora, too, and she has to find out how to use her powers for good instead of chaos.

Magic often creates chaos, but some fantasy novels are more orderly. One of the reasons The Martian was such a hit was the way it took a story with dire stakes and broke it down into a series of problems to solve. Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City has a similar vibe, giving engineer Orhan’s account of saving an alt-Byzantium from a siege.

Alt-histories bring a lot of fun to the fantasy genre. Dactyl Hill Squad, a middle grade fantasy, asks, “what if the American Civil War, but also dinosaurs?” In this story, Magdalys and her friends have to take down a kidnapper, but they have to learn to fly on dactylback first.

Another way to lighten fantasy is to make fun of its own tropes. Nimona is a graphic novel epic fantasy that puts humor on an equal playing field with the bloody battles. This tale of Nimona seeking to be the apprentice to villainous Lord Ballister Blackheart will have you questioning who’s a hero and who’s a monster.

YA fantasy is a genre full of high stakes stories set in broken worlds, but some float up with more lightness and wit. Sorcery of Thorns, in which Elizabeth tends a library of magical grimoires that can turn into real monsters, is vibrant, funny, action-packed, and romantic.

Okay, this book is neither recently published nor from a living author, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include The Princess Bride. If you’re only familiar with the beloved movie, William Goldman wrote that screenplay, so you’re sure to love the book just as much.