Recs if you like Dragonsbane (Winterlands, #1)...

books featuring older women protagonists, age 30 and up, in sci-fi and fantasy. for books containing multiple povs/protagonists, older fmcs should hold equal weight and presence in the story as other mcs. ideally, aiming for more women centred additions, but open to all suggestions and feedback!

A list of First books in Fantasy series (or standalones) published in 1980s-2000s written by female authors. Many of these authors are/were prolific writers so most additions are limited to their debut book or most popular series. Go read more by these authors!

Series starting points for getting into some of the most prolific women authors in sci-fi and fantasy from the 70s-00s.

f*ck misogyny, women write epic fantasy too

Do you feel like you've read everything there is to read? Or get annoyed that the same books are on all the rec lists? Well, here are some more obscure masterpieces!

Some of the covers are terrible - especially among the older or self-pubbed books; there's a few YA in here; and some that are science fantasy rather than 'pure' fantasy. But trust me: they're all EXCELLENT. (And if you already love a bunch of these, let's be friends!)

I know there are a couple other dragon lists out there, but a lot of them were missing some of my favourites, so I'm just making my own!

These books the dragons will play a significant role in the plot, even if the focus of the book isn't dragons themselves (like the Hobbit).

For books in a series, I'll only be adding the first one.

Feel free to drop suggestions! I'm trying to include all the dragon books I can.

A compendium of books featuring dragons

The best lovable, often witty, nonhuman side characters are the cherry on top in these sci-fi/fantasy books. These books feature nonhuman side characters that you really need an entire book for; stealing the show, because humans are overrated.

Always open to suggestions!

Based on my childhood hyper-fixation, in which I would only read books about dragons. And the dragons had to be some degree of intelligent, and the dragons had to be either the protagonists or at least supportive of the protagonists.

A collection of older, sometimes lesser-known, fantasy (or science fantasy) books written by incredible women and published primarily between the 1980s and early 2000s (with nods to a few older ones). In a time when female fantasy authors were few and far between, these authors carved out their own space in the genre. These stories might not be mainstream hits today, but they are full of brilliant magic, deep characters, and/or worlds that helped shape the genre. (First in Series / standalones only for now - open to suggestions!)

This is a not quite exhaustive list of notable fantasy works from the Tolkien era to pretty much today. In the case of series I have only included the first book. I know there are books I am missing so if you can see any let me know and I will add them. (Not necessarily in order of release date)