Quentin Coldwater has always expected magic.  He read the Fillory book series—similar to the Narnia series—long after most children had moved on, and was always subconsciously expecting to find his own passage to those magical lands.  So when he pushed through the tangled over-growth in an old abandoned lot one wintry New York City afternoon and found himself walking across a warm and summery sunlit field toward a huge stone edifice, he was startled, certainly, but not really surprised.  He wasn’t in Fillory, though—just upstate New York, but the building he was walking toward was Brakebills Academy, a school for magic. Quentin, it seemed,  had been specially chosen to take the entrance exam.  And thus began what should have been the adventure of Quentin’s life! Except that learning magic was actually a lot of hard work, and the students and faculty were really a lot like the students and faculty at any pretigious private university, and Quentin was never quite certain just what to do with his magical life after he and his friends graduated.  But when another former student showed up one day claiming that not only was Fillory a real place, but that he had a way for all of them to actually go there, the adventure of Quentin’s life really began. Except…

The Magicians has been compared to Narnia and to Harry Potter, but written for adults, and that’s a fair comparison.  All three share magic and wonder and an escape from the real world. But Grossman sets out to show us that even when magic is real, people are people and life is life and there is no magic spell for happiness. Engrossing and inventive.

Two rival magicians meet and seal a pact: each will train a protégé, and those protégés will compete in a contest only their masters fully understand.  The ground on which the contest will be fought is Le Cirque des Reves—the mysterious monochrome Circus of Dreams, which arrives without warning to delight, amaze, and quite literally entrance its audience.  The contestants are Celia, a young woman naturally skilled in illusions which only pretend to be illusory; and Marco, a strapping young man whose talents were won through research and study but are no less mesmerising for the effort involved.  But when the two meet, their competition becomes a forbidden romance as both put their talents to work wooing the other and their masters look on, disapproving.  The situation seems primed for tragedy, but can the other members of Le Cirque des Reves lend their myriad talents to save the lovers?

 Whimsical, inventive, and wonderfully crafted, The Night Circus is a treat. Recommended for fans of Susanna Clarke, Peter Beagle, and Neil Gaiman.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Outlander, a legendary book that really has it all: time travel, romance, history, adventure and infinitely more. The story opens on Claire Randall, a strong-minded and independent nurse who is vacationing with her husband, Frank, in the Scottish Highlands after being separated for years by WWII. While investigating an interesting flower growing near a Stonehenge-type structure (botany being one of her many talents),  she stumbles into a crack between two stones and is transported to 1743, landing smack in the middle of a battle between the English and Scottish clansmen. Claire, at first a captive of the Clan MacKenzie, proves herself invaluable because of her skill with "healing" and becomes quite comfortable in her new situation, despite being a suspected English spy. A romance soon blossoms between Claire and the mysterious outlaw, Jamie, and she finds herself being held to that time and place even more, despite her complete foreignness, the constant danger and her husband still living in 1945.

The plot is full of twists and turns, clan politics, witchcraft, battles, close escapes and a certain villainous English Captain who strangley resembles her husband back home. Although not a slim book (over 800 pages), you will be glued to every page. A great vacation read for historical fiction, romance and adventure fans. Find out what all the buzz is about and why Outlander is still such a sensation after twenty years.

Former Olympic-class runner Gillian Shaw, in the wake of a career-destroying injury, seeks solitude and solace and rents Robin Cottage on the grounds of Cairdonan, the isolated Scottish estate of eccentric artist Dame Juliana Flagg.  What peace she’s scraped together crumbled quickly when, on a tramp through the wooded grounds, Gillian unknowingly crosses a border between her reality and the realm of the fae folk.  Before she realizes it, Gillian is swept up in a series of events that have haunted Dame Juliana’s family since the end of World War I when Juliana’s uncle, then a young man, disappeared without a trace while he and his sisters were playing a prank on their own uncle—an eccentric who believed in faeries.  Is the disturbed and confused young man who followed Gillian back from the fae realm that long-lost uncle? Or is he someone nearer and dearer to Dame Juliana—her own adopted son, who also disappeared while still a toddler?

The second book in Warrington’s “Aetherial Tales” series, Midsummer Night can nevertheless be read as a stand-alone.  Realistically troubled characters, lush descriptions of the Scottish countryside, and a superbly told story balance the fantastic elements to firmly ground this modern-day fairy tale.