Riot Recommendation: 9 of Your Favorite Secret Magic YA Books

Vanessa Diaz Feb 3, 2020

Vanessa Diaz

Managing Editor

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

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This Riot Recommendation of favorite YA books about secret magic is sponsored by Wednesday Books.

Fierce and ambitious, Aina Solís as sharp as her blade and as mysterious as the blood magic she protects. After the murder of her parents, Aina takes a job as an assassin to survive and finds a new family in those like her: the unwanted and forgotten.

Diamond City: built by magic, ruled by tyrants, and in desperate need of saving. It is a world full of dark forces and hidden agendas, old rivalries and lethal new enemies. To claim a future for herself in a world that doesn’t want her to survive, Aina will have to win a game of murder and conspiracy—and risk losing everything.

Some kinds of magic are all sorting hats and wand flicks, the kind that lives out in the open where it flourishes and thrives. But some magic is kept just beneath the surface, hidden and protected from the ne’er-do-wells and baddies. We love a magical secret, so we asked: what are your favorite YA books about secret magic? We’re adding all these to our TBR, and don’t worry: all of this secret magic is safe with us.

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater