Leah Rachel von Essen reviews genre-bending fiction for Booklist, and writes regularly as a senior contributor at Book Riot. Her blog While Reading and Walking has over 10,000 dedicated followers over several social media outlets, including Instagram. She writes passionately about books in translation, chronic illness and bias in healthcare, queer books, twisty SFF, and magical realism and folklore. She was one of a select few bookstagrammers named to NewCity’s Chicago Lit50 in 2022. She is an avid traveler, a passionate fan of women’s basketball and soccer, and a lifelong learner. Twitter: @reading_while
Abandoned when her Omen stain appeared, Sozo survives by hiding her curse—a rare gift her mentor Esp needs to infiltrate the deadly Decade Race of Stars. The prize: a wish for anything. Esp dreams of reshaping the world, and Sozo convinces herself the risk is worth it. But concealing her monstrous side grows harder, especially after meeting Naqi, whose friendship awakens doubts. As dangers mount, Sozo must decide: fight for Esp’s dream, protect Naqi, or claim the wish for herself—even if it costs everything.
We all know the hero’s journey. We’ve had tales of chosen ones since the beginning of our own stories and myths. A sword in a stone: whoever pulls it out will be the king who unites England. A young, seemingly weak, poor boy succeeds in doing it. He rises to become the greatest king that’s ever been—but he has a connection that he can’t shake with the dark forces, the fae, and temptations that threaten to lead him astray.
Chosen-one tales are threaded throughout our fantasy and science fiction history, from Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea and Ged’s young power to George R.R. Martin’s Prince Who Was Promised. Some tell us from the beginning who the chosen one is; others let us wonder and speculate. And all of them play on essential questions that humanity finds fascinating. Is our life predestined or chosen? Are great leaders born or are they made? All of the chosen-one novels below play in some way with these questions, while painting fantastic and compelling worlds for our protagonists to work their way through.
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
It’s 1345, and Zhu Chongba and her brother know their destinies. She is given a fate of nothingness. He is given a fate of greatness. But when bandits attack their family and her brother is killed, the girl makes a decision. She refuses her destiny. She takes on the identity of Zhu Chongba, and his fate with it. Rising through the ranks of the monastery, Zhu learns to play the game of politics and gender, and her determination to survive quickly becomes a desire to be a power that will help reclaim the empire itself from the Mongols who rule it.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
In Deka’s village, when people come of age, they take part in a blood ceremony. The color of their blood decides whether they’ll be part of their village or not. And hers runs gold—meaning she’s forced out. Devastated, she stumbles onto a group of girls just like her. Gold blood, a woman tells her, is a sign that she’s one of the alaki, semi-immortal women whose incredible powers make them the only chance anyone has to defeat a huge, looming threat that is coming to threaten them all.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Scholomance is a school for people with magic to learn how to use it. Ever-shifting and incredibly dangerous, the school operates on an unusual model: at the end of your fourth year, either you survive the rush of monsters and dark forces and graduate, or you die. El is unlikable and grating, and she has an incredibly dark gift, based in curses, so she isn’t exactly popular among her classmates. But slowly, she and unexpected ally, golden-boy Orion, start to realize that there’s a way to fix what’s broken in Scholomance—and they might have to do it, for anyone at the school to have a fighting chance.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Bree just wants to get away from home when she goes to UNC for a pre-college program. But when she runs into a secret society of students reportedly descended from the Round Table knights themselves, she’s thrown into a world of magic, demons, and the battles between good and evil. Meanwhile, an ex-member wants her help to investigate the group. Naturally, nothing is quite as it seems, and Bree is forced to try and decide whether to believe the Legendborn or make her own calls about what feels right.
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Sunny is albino, and often outcast as a result. But then she learns that she is a Leopard Person, with magical abilities, and that she can become invisible, shift time, and possibly even see visions of the future. Okorafor’s world of giant red grasshoppers, sculpting wasps, and much more is absolutely fascinating. Sunny and her friends deal with classic young-adult nonsense right alongside their magical training and a new maybe-threat to everyone, a vision of disaster that only Sunny may be able to stop.
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
In a dystopian Canada, people have completely lost the ability to dream—and are slowly but surely going insane as a result. In the midst of all this, white people discover that indigenous bone marrow could save them, and quickly, Native Americans are being hunted. Frenchie and his group have been on the run from the Recruiters for a long time, but they discover that one of their talents might actually be able to take the whole process down. This book subverts the chosen-one trope in a lot of ways, emphasizing collective resistance and memory.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
The West African–inspired world of Orïsha used to thrum with magic. But then one night, it all disappeared; a tyrant had all maji murdered. But princess Amari has found a scroll that she thinks has a way to bring the magic back; Zélie Adebola, a young seer, is chosen by the gods to help in her quest; and Inan, the heir to the throne, must decide what side he’s on. In some ways, all three protagonists are chosen ones, and this book is action-packed as they try to take down the rigid racist system that King Saran has imposed.
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
Shiori has magic she shouldn’t have. In this book that mixes Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Wild Swans” with Chinese folklore, she lets her magic leak out; her stepmother tells her that if she speaks of it, one of her brothers will die, every time. Shiori is cast out and lost, trying to find her brothers and realizing more and more that she’s destined to do much more. She has the power to save the entire kingdom from dark forces with the help of a sea dragon named Seryu.
Can’t get enough fantasy? Read our articles on the 10 best magic systems in fantasy, get recommendations for great monster girls in YA, or dive into our list of the 20 most influential fantasy books of the last 10 years.
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