3 Fantasy Books You Can Finish in a Weekend (Oct. 31-Nov. 1)

Published Oct 30, 2026, 4:50 PM EDT

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If you are an avid reader, chances are you are always looking for your next big read. New books come out all the time, but it's tough to separate the ones that are genuinely worth it from the ones that can be skipped. And if you're a fantasy fan, then you have a ton of choices at your disposal, from certified classics like The Lord of the Rings (in case you haven't read it already, that is) to the fresh new ideas that come out every year.

Luckily for you, we are here to try to make the choice a little bit easier. The books on this little list are new-ish (you know the classics by now, don't you?) and all offer new and interesting takes on the fantasy genre. Whether it's a seminal offering from a well-regarded author or a newer gem just waiting to be discovered, these books are perfect choices for you to read this weekend. So sit back, grab a blanket and a warm cup of your favorite drink, and enjoy!

'The Scarlet Ball' (2026)

Image via Tor

USA Today best-selling author Nghi Vo rose to major acclaim with her 2020 novella The Empress of Salt and Fortune, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novella. Since then, she has published two more novels, alongside other novellas. This year, she's back with The Scarlet Ball, a Gothic tale of mystery, opulence, and bloodshed. Set in Gilded Age New York, it follows Judith Ban, a former convent girl and courtesan who agrees to pose as a missing debutante by using magic to replace her face with the girl's. Thus, she enters a world of debutantes, demons, and blood rituals more dangerous than she could've imagined.

The Scarlet Ball is The Gilded Age meets Guillermo del Toro. The book benefits from an atmospheric approach that marries a distinct Gothic sensibility with all the benefits of a Gilded Age tale: wealth, decadence, lush and highly evocative prose, and a faint sense of romanticism. Yet, the book is quite dark: Vo goes for a visceral, bloody approach, highlighting the dangers of this world's trappings and the cost of belonging. The horror of high society takes a literal form here, and the result is a deliciously wicked book that is worth its weight in blood.

'The Book of Blood and Roses' (2026)

Image via Random House Worlds

And now for all the sapphic lovers out there, we have The Book of Blood and Roses. Annie Summerlee's supernatural fantasy novel is set in the Scottish Highlands, where a university allows vampires to study alongside humans. We follow Rebecca Charity, a human vampire hunter out to avenge her deceased parents. Her quest is to find the legendary Book of Blood and Roses, but her plans go awry when she accidentally becomes Familiar to her roommate, Aliz.

Here, we have a classic enemies-to-lovers story with a very strong hook. Few genres lend themselves to sapphic tales of forbidden love better than vampire horror, and The Book of Blood and Roses makes the most of it. However, it filters it through a fantasy angle that makes the supernatural worldbuilding all the more engaging and immersive. The misty allure of the Scottish Highlands is the perfect setting for this gloomy tale, but the main selling point is the electrifying chemistry between the two lead characters. Summerlee opts for a straightforward approach to romance, and while those looking for more spice might be left feeling like something's missing, fans of slow-burning romantic stories will surely be satisfied.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood

Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.

💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)

👒Grand Line(One Piece)

🐺The Continent(The Witcher)

🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)

FIND YOUR WORLD →

01

What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.

ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.

AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.

AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.

AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.

ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.

AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.

ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.

AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…

Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.

Middle-earth

You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.

• This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
• You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
• The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
• You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.

The Grand Line

You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.

• One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
• You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
• The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
• You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.

The Continent

You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.

• Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
• You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
• The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
• You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.

Camp Half-Blood

You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.

• Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
• You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
• The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
• Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

'Warbreaker' (2009)

Image via Gollancz

Few fantasy authors are as acclaimed or prolific as Brandon Sanderson. The beloved fantasist is behind the Cosmere, one of the most impressive and ever-expanding feats of literary worldbuilding, and while his book series are by far his best-known, his standalone works are also worth checking out. This time, we're going with Warbreaker, set within the Cosmere on the planet Nalthis, where people are born with a Breath, a piece of their soul that can be traded, sold, or stockpiled. The main plot concerns two sisters who travel to the kingdom of Hllandren — one to marry the king and the other to rescue her sister.

That's the gist of it, anyway. In reality, Warbreaker is among the most fascinating and politically intricate works in the Cosmere. Of course, there is a magic system, this time based on colors and with some of the most creative rules to come out of Sanderson's sprawling mind. Warbreaker is the perfect book for Sanderson neophytes, a self-contained story set in a world that is equal parts inviting and dangerous. If you want a classic, high-fantasy story with a remarkably complex and colorful (literally) magic system, then you simply can't go wrong with Warbreaker, one of Sanderson's best and most underappreciated works.