My Heart is Booked Blog

Two years ago, I made a commitment to start reading more Indie books. I’m excited to say that over half of the 80 books I’ve read so far this year were Indie titles.

Now, you may be wondering, what is an Indie book? Independent (or Indie) books are those that are not published by a major publishing company like Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, etc. Indie has become a blanket term that includes those published through independent presses as well as self-published authors (although some will make the distinction).

Below you will find a list of my favorite Indie Fantasy books that I highly recommend (in no particular order)! Many of these are available on KU and, for those who are collectors, Indies have really stepped up their hardcover game. Make sure you check author websites for signed books as well.

Indie Fantasy Books:

Beneath Black Sails by Clare Sager

Beneath Black Sails Series– Currently 3 books and 1 novella with 1 more book expected

Steam– some spice

Age– upper YA/NA

With weather magic on her side, Lady Vice is the bane of the high seas, but she isn’t captain of her own ship. Yet. If she can persuade her captain to give her a command, she’ll be in charge of her own fate at last.
To pay off his family’s debts, Knigh Blackwood hunts pirates for the Royal Navy. And he’s damn good at it. When the bounty on Lady Vice grows, he’s determined to make her face justice, even if that means using unorthodox methods.

Forced to work together, neither can deny their mutual attraction. As they face battles at sea and schemes amongst their crew, they discover hints about a long-lost treasure that could be the answer to both their problems.

But treasure isn’t the only thing buried. Secrets best-forgotten lie in wait that could blast them apart. And the closer Vice and Knigh grow, the greater the threat – to her freedom and to his family. Because for one to succeed, the other must fail.

If you love cunning heroes, feisty heroines, and enemies to lovers romance, you’ll love this new adult fantasy series that’s perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas and Miranda Honfleur.

Read Beneath Black Sails today to escape on rum-drenched adventures in a world where flags can lie, X marks the spot, and loyalties shift more than sand.

Gild by Raven Kennedy

Plated Prisoner Series– Currently 3 books with 1 more book expected

Steam– spicy!

Age– 18+

The fae abandoned this world to us. And the ones with power rule.

Gold.

Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold.

Even me.

King Midas rescued me. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. I’m called his precious. His favored. I’m the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. To show how powerful he is. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. And even though I don’t leave the confines of the palace, I’m safe.

Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck.

Suddenly, my trust is broken. My love is challenged, and I realize that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong.

Because these bars I’m kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage.

But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I’d never left.

Blade & Rose by Miranda Honfleur

Blade and Rose Series– Currently 5 books and 2 novellas with 1 more book expected (there is also a spin-off series that can be read independently The Dark-Elves of Nightbloom)

Spice– some spice

Age– upper YA/NA

She trusted him once.
He betrayed her twice.
A third time could bring an entire kingdom to its knees…

Stuck in a betrothal to a cruel werewolf fiancé, Rielle works for the Divinity of Magic, the one thing keeping her from his claws. And the head of the Divinity knows it, giving her every mission no one else wants and few can handle. When an enemy of the Divinity invades their walls, someone needs to frogmarch him home, with no detours. No mage would ever want to handle a magic-nullifying knight… So, of course Rielle is assigned to do it.

The way to their destination is rife with danger—a civil war is brewing, and tangled somewhere in it is Rielle’s best friend, Olivia. When whispers reveal mercenaries have killed the king, taken the capital, and that no one is coming to help, Rielle can’t leave Olivia in peril. But as infamous mages and deadly assassins hunt her holy knight charge, she can’t leave him unprotected either—especially as she finds herself falling for his strength, his passion, and his uncompromising goodness…

Her past returns to haunt them, her werewolf fiancé stalks their steps, and an ancient evil is gathering, yet the restraints forbidding their love strain and snap one by one. Can they overcome the war in their way, or will trusting a two-faced ally tear them apart, and leave Olivia and an entire besieged kingdom to fray at the ends…?

The Savage & The Swan by Ella Fields

Standalone!

Steam– extra spicy!

Age– 18+

The king of wolves was more beast than man, more tyrant than king, and so much more than he seemed.
Raised to avenge his murdered parents, he’d been trained and conditioned until nothing but violence and hatred lined the walls of his dead heart.

For nearly four years, I’d done all I could to help my kingdom as we faced the wolf king’s unconquerable evil—hardly anything at all.
As the only heir to the Gracewood line, I’d been relegated to menial tasks that would keep me and my secrets safe.

A chance to do more than fret behind our castle walls arrived when I breached them after overhearing my parents’ plans for my future. Fleeing, I unknowingly raced into a fate we’d all desperately hoped to avoid.

By the time I saw him coming, it was far too late. For my family. For my kingdom.
For my heart.
Before I could staunch the bleeding, the king had me under his giant paw, and one wrong move after another caused those razor-sharp claws to sink deeper and deeper beneath my bruised skin.

I might have been trapped, naïve, and furious, but I still had a kingdom to save—and a plan.
Yet when we collided, the bloodshed, the fear, his atrocities… all of it dissolved like stardust upon the night sea.

The stars had mapped out our destiny, but it didn’t matter what they or my heart wanted.
I refused to see the enigmatic male, the heartless lost boy with a soul beneath the flesh of a monster.
The savage king who’d destroyed everything I loved would fall—even if my heart fell with him.

City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford

The Demon Queen Trials Series– Currently 1 book with 1 more planned (for now)

Steam– spicy!

Age– 18+

*C.N. Crawford has almost 50 published works. While I absolutely love this one, you could start with a completed series like the Hades Castle Trilogy

I never thought I’d be singing happy birthday to myself in a dungeon. And yet when a sinfully sexy demon crashes happy hour, that’s exactly what happens. He’s known as the Lord of Chaos, and he’s mistaken me for my succubus doppelgänger.

Happy birthday to me.

When he tastes my blood, he finally understands I’m mortal. And I realize we have something in common: we both crave revenge. So we make a deal: I can stay in the forbidden city to hunt for my mom’s killer. In return, I’ll help him get the vengeance he craves. I just have to pose as a sexy succubus. One problem–he’s my number one suspect.

And that’s increasingly hard to remember as he teaches me my role: seduction. With each heated touch I drift further into peril. And if I fall under his seductive spell, death awaits me.

A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova

Married to Magic series– Currently 2 standalone books in the same world with 1 more expected (for now)

Steam– very mild steam

Age– upper YA/NA

*Elise Kova has almost 40 published books. I picked this series because they are standalones within the same world. You can read one to see if you like her style without feeling committed to a whole series. Additionally, many of her other series occur within the same world. Though they can be read out of order, they are interconnected.

The elves come for two things: war and wives. In both cases, they come for death.

Three-thousand years ago, humans were hunted by powerful races with wild magic until the treaty was formed. Now, for centuries, the elves have taken a young woman from Luella’s village to be their Human Queen.

To be chosen is seen as a mark of death by the townsfolk. A mark nineteen-year-old Luella is grateful to have escaped as a girl. Instead, she’s dedicated her life to studying herbology and becoming the town’s only healer.

That is, until the Elf King unexpectedly arrives… for her.

Everything Luella had thought she’d known about her life, and herself, was a lie. Taken to a land filled with wild magic, Luella is forced to be the new queen to a cold yet blisteringly handsome Elf King. Once there, she learns about a dying world that only she can save.

The magical land of Midscape pulls on one corner of her heart, her home and people tug on another… but what will truly break her is a passion she never wanted.

Prince of Shadow and Ash by Selina R. Gonzalez

The Mercenary and the Mage Duet– 2 books and 2 novellas

Steam– clean

Age– YA+

She could be his light… If his darkness doesn’t destroy them both.

Bastard and former mercenary Lord Regulus Hargreaves just wants to earn his freedom from the sorcerer who enslaved him. When Lady Adelaide sees past his scar and his shadowed past, Regulus’ dying hope rekindles. But will loving Adelaide while serving the Prince of Shadow and Ash put her in danger?

Adelaide Belanger longs to use the magical energy within her, but revealing her power could get her killed. When she meets kind and rugged Regulus, she wonders if she has finally found someone to trust with her secret—and her heart. Regulus and Adelaide struggle to build a relationship and keep their secrets from those who would harm them. By the time their secrets are revealed, it may be too late for them both…and possibly for the entire kingdom.

The first book in a medieval-inspired fantasy duology with found family, despicable villains, magic, and love!

Song of the Forever Rains by E.J. Mellow

The Mousai Series– Currently 1 book with 2 more expected

Steam– some spice

Age– 18+

The Thief Kingdom is a place hidden within the world of Aadilor. Many whisper of its existence, but few have found this place, where magic and pleasure abound. There, the mysterious Thief King reigns supreme with the help of the Mousai, a trio of revered and feared sorceresses.

Larkyra Bassette may be the youngest of the Mousai, but when she sings her voice has the power to slay monsters. When it’s discovered the Duke of Lachlan is siphoning a poisonous drug from the Thief Kingdom and using it to abuse his tenants, Larkyra is offered her first solo mission to stop the duke. Eager to prove herself, Larkyra accepts by posing as the duke’s potential bride. But her plans grow complicated when she finds herself drawn to Lord Darius Mekenna, Lachlan’s rightful heir. Soon she suspects Darius has his own motivations for ridding Lachlan of the corrupt duke. Larkyra and Darius must learn to trust each other if there is to be any hope of saving the people of Lachlan—and themselves.

Welcome to the world of Aadilor, where lords and ladies can be murderers and thieves, and the most alluring notes are often the deadliest. Dare to listen?

Radiance by Grace Draven

Wraith Kings Series– 3 books

Steam– spicy

Age– 18+

~THE PRINCE OF NO VALUE~

Brishen Khaskem, prince of the Kai, has lived content as the nonessential spare heir to a throne secured many times over. A trade and political alliance between the human kingdom of Gaur and the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis requires that he marry a Gauri woman to seal the treaty. Always a dutiful son, Brishen agrees to the marriage and discovers his bride is as ugly as he expected and more beautiful than he could have imagined.

~THE NOBLEWOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE~

Ildiko, niece of the Gauri king, has always known her only worth to the royal family lay in a strategic marriage. Resigned to her fate, she is horrified to learn that her intended groom isn’t just a foreign aristocrat but the younger prince of a people neither familiar nor human. Bound to her new husband, Ildiko will leave behind all she’s known to embrace a man shrouded in darkness but with a soul forged by light.

Two people brought together by the trappings of duty and politics will discover they are destined for each other, even as the powers of a hostile kingdom scheme to tear them apart.

Fly with the Arrow by Sarah K.L. Wilson

Bluebeard’s Secret Series– currently 2 books with one more book expected

Steam– mild

Age– Upper YA/NA

A STOLEN BRIDE. A TERRIFYING BRIDEGROOM. THE GAME THAT WILL DETERMINE THEIR FATES.
I’m a practical girl. I can resign myself to an unwanted marriage – and I had. I just didn’t expect my first potential bridegroom to be murdered by the second and all because I broke the Law of Greeting.
No one warned me the law existed. No one told me breaking it would mean I’d be swept up into the arms of a powerful and beautiful immortal bent on taking me as his sixteenth bride and dragging me off to his strange world. That’s a bit much to ask of a person.
But I’m not the kind of girl to just give up. Not even if it means facing all the strange mystery and magic of this mad fae world with nothing but my common sense. I will not mope in my room, or go crazy, or let myself be killed by one of his rivals. And I absolutely WILL NOT fall in love with him.
Not even when he keeps surprising me with depths and kindness I didn’t expect.
Not even if it turns out he actually might have a good reason for all of this.
After all, he’s had fifteen wives before me and it’s not a case of “the more the merrier.” Especially not now, when it turns out he’s playing a game for the fate of my nation.
Failure in this world will mean the desolation of everyone I love.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. But I have a crafty husband, a severed-head best friend who gives surprisingly good advice, and the common sense my mother gave me, and if that isn’t enough to take on the whole of this fae world … well, they’ll just have to be. That’s all there is to it. Because I’m not dying unless I have a very good reason.

Shadow Crusade by Jessaca Willis

The Primordials of Shadowthorn series– 3 books

Spice– mild

Age– 18+

Demons chase her… But this badass huntress is ready to fight back!

When horrifying monsters kill Halira’s and Dimitri’s families, they join the Shadow Crusade, a legion of warriors tasked with destroying demon-kind. Together, they’ll avenge their loved ones, and perhaps find some small amount of comfort in having each other for the journey.

But some horrors can’t be escaped…

One in particular—the roguish half-demon responsible for killing Halira’s parents—stalks her to the Crusader’s camp. She assumes means to finish the massacre he started, but his gentle eyes tell another story, one Halira can’t begin to understand.

On top of learning that demons might not be what they seem, Halira soon discovers a forgotten magic, one that could drive a wedge between her and Dimitri, and threaten the very survival of the realm.

Will Halira be the savior her country needs? Or will the allure of dark forces thrust her into the shadows?

Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa

The Bargainer Series– 3 books

Spice– spicy!

Age– 18+

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear.

Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer to make it happen. He’s a man who can get you anything you want … at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects.

But for one of his clients, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now. When Callie finds the fae king of the night in her room, a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, she knows things are about to change. At first it’s just a chaste kiss—a single bead’s worth—and a promise for more.

For the Bargainer, it’s more than just a matter of rekindling an old romance. Something is happening in the Otherworld. Fae warriors are going missing one by one. Only the women are returned, each in a glass casket, a child clutched to their breast. And then there are the whispers among the slaves, whispers of an evil that’s been awoken.

If the Bargainer has any hope to save his people, he’ll need the help of the siren he spurned long ago. Only, his foe has a taste for exotic creatures, and Callie just happens to be one.

Subversive by Colleen Cowley

The Clandestine Magic Series– 3 books and 1 novella

Spice– some spice

Age– 18+

A wizard. An unwilling assistant. An explosive secret.

In an America controlled by wizards and 100 years behind on women’s rights, Beatrix Harper counts herself among the resistance—the Women’s League for the Prohibition of Magic. Then Peter Blackwell, the only wizard her town has ever produced, unexpectedly returns home and presses her into service as his assistant.

Beatrix fears he wants to undermine the League. His real purpose is far more dangerous for them both.

Heart of the Fae by Emma Hamm

The Otherworld Duology– 2 books

Spice– some spice

Age– upper YA/NA

*Emma Hamm has almost 40 published books. I started with Heart of the Fae because I love Beauty and the Beast retellings, but she has many amazing books to choose from.

A devastating plague. A deal with the fae. And a magical realm she might not survive… 

When a plague sweeps across the emerald hills of Uí Néill, Sorcha makes a deal with a dangerous Fae to save her people. Now she must travel the sea, explore merrow and kelpie lands, and find a forgotten king on a crumbling throne. 
 
Born king of the Seelie Fae, Eamonn fought battles unnumbered to uphold honor, duty, and freedom…until his twin brother sank a blade between his shoulders. Crystals grew from the wound, splitting open skin and bone. His people banished him to a cursed isle for his disfigurement, where he now rules as a king of outcasts and criminals. 
 
With the help of brownies, pixies, and will-o’-the-wisps, Sorcha battles to break through his crystalline shell and persuade him to take back his stolen throne. But can this determined beauty come dangerously close to stealing his beastly heart…or will his enemies kill her first? 

Beasts of the Frozen Sun by Jill Criswell

Frozen Sun Saga– 3 books

Steam– clean

Age– YA

Burn brightly. Love fiercely. For all else is dust.

Every child of Glasnith learns the last words of Aillira, the god-gifted mortal whose doomed love affair sparked a war of gods and men, and Lira of clan Stone knows the story better than most. As a descendant of Aillira and god-gifted in her own right, she has the power to read people’s souls, to see someone’s true essence with only a touch of her hand.

When a golden-haired warrior washes up on the shores of her homeland—one of the fearful marauders from the land of the Frozen Sun—Lira helps the wounded man instead of turning him in. After reading his soul, she realizes Reyker is different than his brethren who attack the coasts of Glasnith. He confides in her that he’s been cursed with what his people call battle-madness, forced to fight for the warlord known as the Dragon, a powerful tyrant determined to reignite the ancient war that Aillira started.

As Lira and Reyker form a bond forbidden by both their clans, the wrath of the Dragon falls upon them and all of Glasnith, and Lira finds herself facing the same tragic fate as her ancestor. The battle for Lira’s life, for Reyker’s soul, and for their peoples’ freedom has only just begun …

I hope this list helps you get started reading Indie Fantasy. Feel free to drop your own recommendations below!