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Books like The Moon and the Sun

Vonda N. McIntyre · 1997 · US · fantasy · historical fiction
★ 3.61 Goodreads · 2,361 ratings

At Versailles in 1693, Marie-Josèphe de la Croix, sister of the king's natural philosopher, is put in charge of a captured sea monster, and discovers it is an intelligent woman.

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12 books for readers of The Moon and the Sun

The Unicorn Hunters

Katherine Arden · 2026 · US 94% match ★ 3.81 Goodreads · 13,755 ratings
shares: French, female perspective, romantic, court · earnest, unhurried

In 1490 Anne, the young duchess of Brittany, is under pressure to make a marriage that will hand her duchy to its enemies, and to buy time she lures the French envoy into a hunt for a unicorn in the enchanted forest of Brocéliande.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In

John Wiswell · 2024 · US 93% match ★ 3.85 Goodreads · 26,587 ratings
shares: fantasy, monstrous, romantic · speculative, easy read

Shesheshen, a shapeshifting monster hibernating under a manor, is hunted by a family of monster-hunters, and falls for Homily, one of them.

Paladin of Souls

Lois McMaster Bujold · 2003 · US 92% match ★ 4.19 Goodreads · 28,224 ratings
Book 2 of 3 in World of the Five Gods
shares: fantasy, female perspective, romantic · speculative, earnest

Ista, the dowager royina of Chalion, long thought mad, slips away from her keepers on a pilgrimage and is drawn into a border war with demons and into the gods' own business.

The Once and Future Witches

Alix E. Harrow · 2020 · US 92% match ★ 4.02 Goodreads · 115,907 ratings
shares: alternate history, romantic, alt history · easy read, earnest

In 1893, three estranged sisters arrive separately in the city of New Salem and get swept up in the suffrage movement, which they intend to win with witchcraft people thought had been burned out of the world.

The Familiar

Leigh Bardugo · 2024 · US 90% match ★ 3.74 Goodreads · 152,379 ratings
shares: female perspective, romantic · easy read, earnest

In Golden Age Madrid, a scullery maid hiding her Jewish ancestry is pushed to perform her small miracles for ambitious nobles, under the eye of the Inquisition and an immortal familiar.

Nettle & Bone

T. Kingfisher · 2022 · US 89% match ★ 4.06 Goodreads · 161,217 ratings
shares: fantasy, female perspective · speculative, easy read

Marra, the quiet, overlooked third princess, decides to kill the prince who has married her sisters, and sets out with a dust-wife, a disgraced knight and a dog made of bones.

His Majesty's Dragon

Naomi Novik · 2006 · US 89% match ★ 4.07 Goodreads · 115,995 ratings
Book 1 of 9 in Temeraire
shares: alternate history, alt history · easy read, hopeful

During the Napoleonic Wars, Royal Navy captain Will Laurence captures a French ship carrying a dragon egg, and when it hatches and the dragon chooses him, he must leave the sea for Britain's aerial corps.

The Calculating Stars

Mary Robinette Kowal · 2018 · US 88% match ★ 3.95 Goodreads · 39,499 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in Lady Astronaut
shares: alternate history, female perspective, nebula award, alt history · earnest, easy read

In 1952 a meteorite destroys Washington DC and sets off a climate catastrophe, and Elma York, a mathematician and former wartime pilot, joins the rush to space and wants to be an astronaut.

The Dragon Waiting

John M. Ford · 1983 · US 88% match ★ 3.75 Goodreads · 2,450 ratings
shares: alternate history, alt history · unhurried, speculative

In a fifteenth century where Byzantium rules much of Europe and the old gods were never quite driven out, a Welsh wizard, a Florentine physician, a German mercenary and a Byzantine prince come together around the young Duke of Gloucester.

Gloriana

Michael Moorcock · 1978 · UK 87% match ★ 3.64 Goodreads · 2,361 ratings
shares: alternate history, court · unhurried, conventional

In Albion, an empire much like Elizabethan England, Queen Gloriana keeps her golden age of peace by leaving its darker work to her old chancellor, who hires a brilliant, amoral rogue named Quire.

The Wandering Unicorn

Manuel Mujica Lainez · 1965 · Argentina 86% match ★ 3.73 Goodreads · 338 ratings
shares: romantic · unhurried, speculative

Melusine, a fairy cursed to take a serpent's tail every Saturday, has haunted the castle of Lusignan for centuries, until she slips into a unicorn's horn set on the helmet of a young knight bound for the Crusades.

Seraphina

Rachel Hartman · 2012 · Canada 86% match ★ 3.94 Goodreads · 90,148 ratings
Book 1 of 2 in Seraphina
shares: romantic, court · speculative, easy read

In the kingdom of Goredd, where humans and dragons in human form keep an uneasy forty-year peace, Seraphina, assistant to the court composer, hides the truth about her mother, and a prince is murdered in a way that looks like a dragon's work.