Book Recommendations to make Life feel Magical again

I’ve been sick the past couple of weeks and spent most of that time reading lots and lots of books. Today, I wanted to share a few book recommendations that helped me see the world in a more magical way, bringing a little bit of magic back into my life again. I hope these recs inspire you to dive into a few (or maybe you’ve already read some of them🥰)!

Make yourself a warm cup of coffee or tea, get cozy and enjoy reading! 💕

1. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I will never stop recommending this book!

It is a classic, but also a relatively easy read at the same time, which can be hard to come by in my opinion.

It is a story of new beginnings,

healing, growth and rediscovering the magic of the ordinary.

There´s a secret garden (do I even need to say more hehe), amazing character development, a beautiful manor, friendship, animals, a grumpy gardener and so much more!

2. Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell

   
   

   I got this book last year at the airport while travelling back from Sweden, thinking it looked interesting... Little did I know it would soon become one of my favorite books yet!

   
   

This book has opened up a whole new imaginary world for me and even after almost a month of having finished it, I still find myself thinking about it!

It´s a story about friendship, new discoveries, adventure and a magical world hidden from ours.

If you are someone who might want to get into fantasy books, but doesn´t want to jump straight into adult romantasy,

I think this is one of the best books you could start with!

The writing is SO GOOD and the fantasy world "Archipelago" with its fantastical creatures and magic is so well thought out! I also found myself really being able to connect to the characters! Oh, and there´s a "bestiary" with artwork of all the imaginary creatures + little facts about each of them! 🥰

3. The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

This is a cozy romance novel about a librarian who lives in a city and decides to move and start a slow life in the countryside, opening her own bookshop on wheels!

If you ever dreamt of living a slower life, love books and are looking for something that might inspire you to dream again, this book will (hopefully) do exactly that for you!

P.S: While reading, I made a whole Pinterest Board with inspo for my own dream Bookshop... I even un-privated it, so you can see it here hehe (I trust you not to make too much fun of me hahaha😅)

4. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

   
   

I was a little hesitant to include this book, as I haven´t finished it just yet, but I decided I will add it regardless,

as it is such a cozy, heartwarming read full of magic, coffee & new beginnings!

It follows an orc barbarian named Viv, who decides to "hang up her sword" and open a coffee shop in a little town serving gnomish coffee, with the help of a ratman and a succubus!

It´s another one of these books that make me dream of new possibilities & want to visit cozy coffeeshops in my little town ^^

5. In my Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger

This is a bit of a different one because it is non-fiction and quite physics-heavy (in a way even someone who hates physics would enjoy in my opinion), but I still wanted to include this book because it has changed the way I view death and got me into the absolutely fascinating world of quantum physics, which is something that made life feel much more mysterious to me! I also want to add that I am not a maths, or physics girly (Maths was my least favorite subject in school), but I LOVED this book!

When I picket it up, I had never heard of it before, but somehow felt drawn to it when I first saw the book sitting there on a shelf in a little airport bookshop and had to take it with me! (You might notice a bit of a theme there, of me getting my books from airports hehe.. I made this tradition where I buy a random book every time I travel by plane.)

The author, Sebastian Junger writes about his own near death experience after an emergency operation, in which he saw his deceased father sitting infront of him and afterwards, started reflecing on his brush with death and researching multiple NDE accounts and the possibility of an afterlife.

I would recommend this book to anyone who might be curious about Life & Death and the mysteries of it all, but also want to give a warning as, while it is fascinating, the talk of death and medical situations might be triggering to some!

6. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

On a lighter note, the Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is a cozy fantasy

about a witch named Mika Moon, who has been taught that she needs to hide her magic and stay away from other witches to avoid drawing attention to their powers from an early age,

until she takes a job as a nanny to an unusual (adorable) family with three little untrained witches, hidden away by magic at "Nowhere House" and everything changes...

She also drives a little yellow car named broomstick and has a cute dog she takes everywhere with her and there´s a grumpy librarian guy...

(do I even need to say more? hehe😊)

1. The Dream Harbor Book Series by Laurie Gilmore

   
   

Laurie Gilmore´s fictional town "Dream Harbor" reminds me of everything cozy and heartwarming from Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls...

Every book writes about the story of each individual town resident and they also all appear in each of the books, which makes it feel like your favorite Disney characters collaborating in a movie if that makes sense?

The books are cozy, filled with the magic of the season they´re set in (there´s a book for every season), romance and the lovely lives of the people of Dream Harbor.

You can read every book as a standalone if you don´t want to commit to the whole series, which I love as I have only read two of the books so far (The Pumpkin Spice Cafe & The Christmas Tree Farm) and am about to read my third "The Strawberry Patch Pancake House", which has all the cozy spring vibes!🌸

It´s a very unserious, lighthearted hallmark-ish bookseries, in the best way possible!💕

8. The Cottage Fairy Companion by Paopla Merrill

TheCottageFairy is one of my favorite comfort channels on YouTube. She has stopped posting since becoming a mother, but her book and older videos are still available. She made videos on Slow, Intentional Living in her cottage within a small town in the US and her book The Cottage Fairy Companion is about just that.

It´s a guide on creating a cozy and inspiring space, living in alignment with natural cycles and seasons, with some of Paopla´s beautiful watercolor art, poems and inspirational quotes sprinkled within the pages.

Suuper cozy & inspiring and I love having it as a coffee table book to open and read a page or two whenever I feel like it!

1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

I´m a little late to the hype, but Fourth Wing is another one of these books that opened up a whole new fantasy world for me!

It´s not as uplifting as the ones I mentioned above, but if you´re okay with a bit of spice and dark-academia, then I´d absolutely recommend it!

The book is following the journey of Violet Sorrengail, who is forced by her mother to join the Basgiath War College and become a dragon rider despite her "fragile body". In this college, you either graduate, or d!e...

"A dragon without its rider is a tragedy.

A rider without their dragon is dead" ~Fourth Wing

The dragons, the characters, the worldbuilding, the romance!!

1. the ACOTAR book series by Sarah J. Maas

Okay, let me preface this by saying that I know these books are super hyped—but I genuinely loved them (even though I’m not completely finished with the series yet). ACOTAR was actually the first book that got me into romantasy, a genre I’ve come to absolutely love! So I feel like I’d be doing it an injustice if I didn’t include this series in today’s list...

The worldbuilding is spot on (in my opinion), and while I didn’t totally love the first book, I could NOT put ACOMAF (#2) down for the life of me! Starting from book two: The romance, characters, plot, worldbuilding, etc. make this series worth the hype, in my opinion...

If you are okay with a little spice and gore and haven´t given them a read yet, go and get yourself a copy! After book one, they only get better! 🥰

Thank you sooo much for reading and I hope you got some inspo from these book recommendations to make life feel a little more magical again! Maybe you already read some of the books I listed and I´d love to know which ones you´d be adding!

I might be adding to this list, or creating a new one in the future as time goes on and I keep reading new books 🥰 Until then, I´m sending lots of love and coziness your way x