With summer winding down and fall creeping closer, it’s the perfect time to leave reality behind and get lost in a good book. These fantasy stories bring Jewish folklore and mythology to life through magical worlds, mystical creatures and unforgettable adventures. From romps and rendezvous with demons in Hannah Reynolds’s young adult fantasy debut to the long-awaited return to the world of golems and jinn in the final installment of Helene Wecker’s beloved The Golem and the Jinni series and more, there’s plenty of magic to discover.

Jewish Romantasy

Love Me Like a Rock Song
By Shelley Jay Shore (Dell Romance)

When musician Delilah Cohen is left at the altar with nothing but a notebook full of unusable love songs and a honeymoon road trip, she decides to go anyway, hoping a change of scenery will help her figure out what comes next. What she’s not expecting, though, is to fall for Emmett, her mysterious golem passenger.

Purchase the book here.

A Practical Guide to Dating a Demon
By Hannah Reynolds (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)

Full of whimsy, banter and hijinks, this YA romantasy follows Naomi, a student at the magical Lyceum who claims to be betrothed to a demon to fend off suitors—only for a demon named Daziel to show up insisting he is her fiancé. As the city’s magic grows unstable, Naomi begins to wonder if her fake betrothal is more real than she thought.

Purchase the book here.

Mystery and Fantasy

ZigZag Girl
By Ruth Knafo Setton (Black Spring Crime)

The Prestige meets Knives Out in this noir, feminist book set in Atlantic City’s magical underground. When magician Lucy Moon finds her best friend murdered inside the infamous sawing box that claimed another performer decades earlier, she’s drawn into a deadly mystery tied to her own buried past.

Purchase the book here.

Historical Fantasy

The Gates of Midnight
By Helene Wecker (Harper)

This novel is the long-awaited final installment in Helene Wecker’s bestselling The Golem and The Jinni trilogy. Set in 1930, the book picks up three decades after the events of The Hidden Palace. As Chava builds a sanctuary for magical beings in Brooklyn and Ahmad starts anew in Chicago, forces from their past draw them back together.

Purchase the book here.

Epic Fantasy

The Kingdom of Almonds (The Mirror Realm #3)
By Ariel Kaplan (Erewhon Books)

 In this epic conclusion to the Mirror Realm Cycle, the fate of all three realms is up in the air as Toba, Naftaly and their friends must settle the question of Luz once and for all.

Purchase the book here.

Gothic Fantasy

Odessa
By Gabrielle Sher (Little Brown and Company)

Set in a fictional Russia at the height of the pogroms, Yetta is a headstrong teenager who’s desperate for freedom. When violence sweeps through their shtetl and Yetta is killed, her father uses ancient magic to bring her back, but Yetta soon discovers something isn’t right—and a mysterious creature in the woods may be to blame.

Purchase the book here.

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Courtney Shapiro is the Assistant Digital Editor for Hadassah Magazine. She has written for Woman’s World, First for Women and Best Life. Follow her on Instagram for book recommendations, reviews and more.