Fantasy Guide

Books Like Harry Potter for Adults

The magic school wonder, the found family, the discovery of a hidden world — but written for readers who need more than YA stakes.

Updated May 2025 • SpinToRead Editors

What Harry Potter gives you is specific: the revelation that magic is real, that there's a hidden world you belong to, and that the right people will become your family. Adult fantasy rarely packages all three together. These books come closest.

Magic Schools and Discovery

The Name of the Wind
Most Similar

1. The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss • 2007

Kvothe tells his own legend — how he attended the University to learn the Name of the Wind. Brilliant, romantic, incomplete.

View on Amazon
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Literary HP

2. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke • 2004

Two magicians restore magic to England during the Napoleonic Wars. Footnoted, funny, and 800 pages of perfection.

View on Amazon

Found Family

The House in the Cerulean Sea
Warmest Pick

3. The House in the Cerulean Sea

TJ Klune • 2020

A caseworker sent to assess dangerous magical orphans falls in love with them instead. Pure found-family warmth.

View on Amazon
Six of Crows
Found Family

4. Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo • 2016

Six misfits become a family through shared danger. Darker than HP but the same found-family core.

View on Amazon

Hidden Worlds

The Magicians
Adult HP

5. The Magicians

Lev Grossman • 2009

A Brooklyn teenager discovers a real magic school. Deliberately aware of HP — darker, sadder, and then triumphant.

View on Amazon
Piranesi
Short & Perfect

6. Piranesi

Susanna Clarke • 2020

A man lives in a house of infinite halls. The mystery of his situation unfolds like a magical discovery.

View on Amazon

Epic Scope

The Way of Kings
Epic Scale

7. The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson • 2010

Stormlight Archive — the most HP-adjacent adult epic in terms of scope, wonder, and character investment.

View on Amazon
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Standalone

8. The Priory of the Orange Tree

Samantha Shannon • 2019

A standalone epic with dragons, queens, and a world-building mythology centuries in the making.

View on Amazon

More Approachable Picks

Legends and Lattes
Cozy Fantasy

9. Legends and Lattes

Travis Baldree • 2022

An orc opens a coffee shop. Low stakes, high charm, perfect for HP readers who want coziness.

View on Amazon
The Goblin Emperor
Hidden Gem

10. The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison • 2014

A kind-hearted half-goblin unexpectedly inherits an empire. Everything HP wanted to be about institutional goodness.

View on Amazon