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Riot Recommendation: What Are Your Favorite Books Set In Magical Versions Of Real Places?

S. Zainab Williams

Executive Director, Content

S. Zainab would like to think she bleeds ink but the very idea makes her feel faint. She writes fantasy and horror, and is currently clutching a manuscript while groping in the dark. Find her on Twitter: @szainabwilliams.

This Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Gilded Cage, Book One in the Dark Gifts series.

The world belongs to the Equals—aristocrats with magical gifts—and all commoners must serve them for ten years.

But behind the gates of England’s grandest estate lies a power that could break the world.

Our heroes are a brother and sister who are brought to serve Britain’s most powerful family. It’s upstairs-downstairs drama; beautiful and wicked aristocrats romancing rebellious commoners; and an epic of politics, passion, and revolution.

Not all are free. Not all are equal. Not all will be saved.


Go left at the statue, walk through the abandoned shop, then out the back door into the alley, and step into a world at once familiar and unrecognizable. Are you in Red London, Jordan College, or somewhere we’ve never heard of?

Tell us in the comments below: what’s your favorite book set in a magical version of a real place?