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SJPL Picks: YA Mythological & Folklore-inspired Fiction

Sometimes the best stories are the ones that we've been telling for millennia. In this list, myths of old gain new life, heroes return, fabled creatures roam, and gods walk the Earth. Each of these novels features a story influenced by or based on different mythologies and folklores from around the world. Selected and curated by SJPL Librarians.

San José Public Library

50 items

  • Dark fantasy, Paranormal romance. A young woman with a mythic duty struggles to let go in the wake of her girlfriend’s death. Estrella “Noche” Villanueva is a Lechuza: She’s a 17-year-old girl by day and a legendary black owl at night, responsible…
    Book, 2025New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. — YA FICTION Torres
  • Historical fantasy. Forced into a life of exile, Hanalei of Tamarind is reunited with her childhood best friend Sam to find a rare dragonfruit whose magic can save his mother, the princess — offering Hanalei the chance to return home and right a…
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Clarion Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2024] — YA FICTION Lucier
  • Fantasy. After a particularly brutal friendship breakup, Machi stopped speaking, and she’s struggled with her mental health ever since. Now on her seventh therapist and with her parents out of town for weeks, she impulsively stops in an…
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Soho Teen, [2024] — YA FICTION Murashig
  • Horror. A deeply atmospheric Frankenstein retelling rooted in Indian mythology. Sentenced to death for her undead sister's bloody rampage, Kajal resurrects the kingdom's fallen prince, or so she thinks, and must quickly fix her mistake, discovering…
    Book, 2024New York : Nancy Paulsen Books, 2024. — YA FICTION Sim
  • Dark fantasy. A Polish folklore and culture–influenced fantasy. Making a bargain with a demon to be free of her monstrous powers, Liska, who has been forced to live in the demon's crumbling manor, soon discovers something far worse than her…
    Book, 2024New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2024. — YA FICTION Poranek
  • Fantasy. In a small, idyllic town in North Dakota, 17-year-old Ophelia Johnson and five other teens inherit the powers of the ancient gods—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Artemis, Apollo, and Ares—and embark on a mission from the Vessel of Destiny to find…
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Three Rooms Press 2024. — YA FICTION Janae
  • Fantasy. In this mesmerizing fantasy rooted in Urhobo and West African folklore, sixteen-year-old Naborhi longs for a life away from her small, traditional clan in Kokori. Then Naborhi becomes bonded to a mysterious animal and begins having…
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Norton Young Readers, 2024. — YA FICTION Kome
  • Historical fantasy. Lamb packs their swift sophomore effort with adventure, folklore, and Jewish mysticism. On the night before her wedding, 17-year-old Sorel leaps from a window and runs away from her life. To keep from being discovered, she takes…
    Book, 2024Chronicle Books Llc 2024 — FIC
  • Fantasy. Blending historical fantasy, romance, and Chinese folklore, Lee offers a beautifully written novel about Prince Xian, who’s on a mission to find a cure for his mother’s fatal illness after she’s bitten by a venomous white snake. When he…
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers [2024] — YA FICTION Lee
  • Horror. When a ghost from the spirit world transforms her sister, Ruby Chen confronts the dark upheaval in Vancouver's Chinatown as she enters into an ancient battle over the gateway to the underworld as she attempts to save her sister and her…
    Book, 2024Los Angeles ; New York : Hyperion, 2024. — YA FICTION Lin
  • Dark fantasy. A solid debut dark fantasy inspired by Norse myth and folklore sure to please the intricate romantasy reader. Astrid, a teen who suffers with Crohn's disease, accidentally awakens an imprisoned draugr and must follow him into the…
    Book, 2024New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2024] — YA FICTION Seitz
  • Fantasy. Before he can be reborn, Zan has spent 499 years bound in a 500-year curse to process souls for the monstrous Ferryman―and if he fails he dies. In Portland, Bastian is grieving. He survived a car accident that took his mother and…
    Book, 2024Salem, MA : Page Street Publishing Co., [2024]. — YA FICTION Kulwicki
  • Urban fantasy. Sisters Clara and Molly are estries—­creatures from Jewish folklore who shape-shift into owls and thirst for blood. They comanage the Grand Dame, a wonderfully old Yiddish theater in New York City that provides the perfect cover for…
    Book, 2024New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2024. — YA FICTION Vishny
  • Fantasy. Bryn is the youngest of three sisters in the “Martels Who Live in a Theme Park” family. They live in a Renaissance fair outside Chicago, which already weirds people out. She’s also the youngest of the modern Valkyries, used by Odin to bring…
    Book, 2024Los Angeles : Hyperion, 2024. — YA FICTION Finch
  • Historical fantasy. Every Lunar Eclipse signifies the beginning of the Immortal Games: An epic set of games played by the Gods of Olympus, with randomly-selected humans as their Tokens.
    Book, 2024New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., [2024] — YA FICTION Avery
  • Fantasy. Indian folklore is woven into the Greek Medusa myth in a colorfully descriptive world where monsters have been nearly hunted to extinction and temples float in the sky. Years after Manisha’s family makes the agonizing decision to have her…
    Book, 2024Los Angeles : Hyperion, 2024. — YA FICTION Patel
  • Magical realism. Legend says that a giant catfish lives under the islands of Japan, causing earthquakes whenever it twists and turns. Sora Campbell hates that catfish. Seven years earlier, a massive quake altered time, resulting in the…
    Book, 2023New York : Amulet Books, 2023. — YA FICTION Kumagai
  • Historical horror. Vera is a golem, made from mud and water and the hair, teeth, and eyes of her maker's daughter. That maker is a man whose daughter, Chaya, was killed by the Nazis, and he used forbidden magic to create Vera with one purpose: to…
    Book, 2023Toronto, Ontario : Inkyard Press, [2023] — YA FICTION Polydoro
  • Fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Gem Echols hides their mental health challenges and mysterious dreams in the small town of Gracie, Georgia, but when a newcomer reveals a shocking claim of being reincarnated gods together, Gem's life takes a perilous…
    Book, 2023New York : Wednesday Books, 2023. — YA FICTION Edgmon
  • Fantasy, Mystery. In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, Io, a descendant of the Greek Fates, must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.
    Book, 2023New York : Razorbill, 2023. — YA FICTION Hatzopou