20 Must-Read Genre-Blending Literary Fiction Books

Every story in All the Names They Used for God blends elements of fairy tales and the fantastical. An albino woman living on the frontier in the 1800s finds a cave with mysterious voices calling to her from inside. Two girls abducted and forced to marry their captors discover they can control their husbands just by speaking a command. A man in a factory accident has his lungs turned into glass.

G. Willow Wilson blends historical fiction, fantasy, and myth in this novel that centers around Fatima, a concubine in the court of the last Muslim emirate in Spain. Before the Catholic Spanish leaders can arrive, Fatima and her friend Hassan escape to find the fabled island of the Bird King.

This winner of the 2017 Kirkus Prize blends realism with the fantastical. Each short story is a unique gem unto its own. There are ghosts, alternate futures, and modern day fables all contained in this single collection. In What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah is a masterful short story writer at her best.

Winner of the National Book Award, Sing, Unburied, Sing is an incredible feat of Southern literature. Jesmyn Ward concludes her trilogy of Mississippi novels with this ghost story. Jojo, a 13-year-old boy, lives with his grandparents. But when his mom shows up to take him to pick up his father who is being released from prison, he goes on a road trip that will change his life forever.

A girl with a tail and a hole that spits up letters from the past are just part of everyday life in K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary. Generations of Tawainese American women tell their stories full of wonder and the grotesque. Blending myth and magic, Chang creates a novel that is as harrowing as it is wonderful.

Inspired by the myth of Daphne and Apollo, The Vegetarian follows a Korean woman who decides to quit eating meat. Her family is horrified and tries to convince her to change her mind. Kang combines elements of realist description alongside aspects of myth and the fantastical to create something wholly unique.

In Namwali Serpell’s sprawling novel, each section is written in a different genre. The novel begins in 1904 at the edge of Zambezi river. As the novel moves forward in time and we follow three Zambian families, the genres begin to blend with each generation, creating an incredible story you never want to end.

A finalist for the Man Booker Prize, Washington Black blends fabulism, historical fiction, and travel narratives into this highly praised novel. The story follows “Wash” through his life as he finds himself going from an enslaved kid to a scientist’s assistant to a world adventurer. Every twist and turn of Wash’s life takes him somewhere new as he tries to find a place for himself as a Black man in a colonialist world.

In 1920s Alaska, a childless couple struggles to make a home for themselves on the frontier. But one day they build a child out of snow, and the next morning, they discover a young girl where the snow child should be. With The Snow Child, Ivey twists and pulls the traditional frontier story into something a little more magical.

Cloud Cuckoo Land follows timelines in the past, present, and future, combining elements of science fiction and fantasy to create the story. In the 15th century, a young girl discovers a manuscript sought after by scribes. A girl in the far future is the last hope Earth has for its population to survive. And in the present, an older man named Zeno tries to save school children from a shooter in the library.

Susanna Clarke blends historical fiction and the fantastical in her novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Set in 1806, the narrative follows two rival academic magicians whose battle for supremacy deeply impacts the politics of the time as Britain is eyeballs deep in the Napoleonic Wars.