| What you loved | Best match | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Magic school + chosen one | Percy Jackson | 8–12 |
| Dark themes + world-building | His Dark Materials | 12+ |
| Adult literary magic | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Adult |
| Epic fantasy progression | The Name of the Wind | Adult |
| Funny British magic | Discworld (Wyrd Sisters) | Adult |
Ages 8–12 — The Closest Structural Matches
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief — Rick Riordan (2005)
Percy discovers he's the son of Poseidon, attends Camp Half-Blood (a summer camp for demigods), and goes on quests with loyal friends. Riordan reverse-engineered the Harry Potter formula deliberately — the hidden world, the school, the trio, the escalating darkness across five books. The humour is American, faster, and funnier than Rowling. The perfect bridge from HP for younger readers.
Check price on Amazon →The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) — Michael Scott (2007)
Twins Sophie and Josh discover their employer is Nicholas Flamel — the real alchemist from history, still alive after 600 years, guarding the Book of Abraham. History's most famous figures (Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Dee, Paracelsus) appear as supporting characters. Dense with real historical detail, fast-paced, and genuinely educational in the way Harry Potter's mythology was.
Check price on Amazon →The Chronicles of Narnia — C.S. Lewis (1950–1956)
The series that preceded and influenced Harry Potter more than any other. Children discovering a hidden world through a wardrobe, a lamp-post in the snow, a lion who is and isn't God. Lewis's Christian allegory runs deep but never overwhelms the adventure. If your child hasn't read these yet, they should — in publication order (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first).
Check price on Amazon →Eragon — Christopher Paolini (2003)
A farm boy finds a dragon egg and becomes one of the last Dragon Riders. Paolini was fifteen when he wrote it, which shows in the craft but not the ambition — the world is enormous and the series genuinely improves with each book. The fourth book Inheritance is a satisfying conclusion. A fifth book Murtagh was published in 2023.
Check price on Amazon →Ages 12–17 — More Depth, Darker Themes
His Dark Materials — Philip Pullman (1995–2000)
Lyra Belacqua lives in a world like ours but different — every person has a daemon, an animal companion that is their soul. She is pulled into a conspiracy involving kidnapped children, armoured bears, and the nature of consciousness. Pullman is a better writer than Rowling and his themes (free will, religious authority, the meaning of death) are more ambitious. The darkness of books 2 and 3 rivals any adult fantasy. Essential.
Check price on Amazon →The Magicians — Lev Grossman (2009)
Quentin Coldwater is accepted to Brakebills, a secret university for magicians. Grossman asks the question Rowling never did: what would it actually do to a generation of brilliant, depressive twenty-year-olds to discover magic was real? The answer is dark, funny, and devastatingly true. The Narnia-analogue sequences in books 2–3 are genius. Not for younger readers.
Check price on Amazon →Six of Crows — Leigh Bardugo (2015)
Six misfit criminals plan an impossible heist in a fantasy Amsterdam. The magic system is established in Bardugo's earlier Shadow and Bone trilogy (start there first if you prefer order, or jump straight to Six of Crows for the better book). The ensemble dynamics, the loyalty, and the escalating stakes map directly onto what HP fans love.
Check price on Amazon →An Ember in the Ashes — Sabaa Tahir (2015)
A brutal Roman-inspired empire. An enslaved girl and a soldier at a military academy, alternating POVs. Tahir writes action and moral complexity with equal skill. The school/academy setting maps onto Hogwarts; the darkness is significantly greater. The four-book series is fully published and each entry escalates both the stakes and the quality.
Check price on Amazon →Harry Potter works because of three things that rarely coexist: a richly built secondary world with consistent internal rules, a central friendship trio that feels real, and a darkness that escalates credibly across seven books. Books that match one element are common. Books that match all three are rare. His Dark Materials and The Name of the Wind are the two that come closest for adult readers.
Adults — Literary Magic at Full Power
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell — Susanna Clarke (2004)
Nineteenth-century England. Magic has been absent for three hundred years. Mr Norrell, a reclusive scholar, decides to bring it back — and is immediately upstaged by the brilliant, reckless Jonathan Strange. Clarke writes in the style of Austen and Dickens, with extensive footnotes referencing imaginary magical texts. The most fully realised magical world since Tolkien. Takes about 100 pages to find its pace, then becomes impossible to put down.
Check price on Amazon →The Name of the Wind — Patrick Rothfuss (2007)
Kvothe — the most legendary figure of his age — tells his own life story from a village inn. The University (a school for magic and scholarship) occupies much of book 1 and is the closest analogue to Hogwarts in adult fantasy: classes, teachers, exams, social hierarchies, a rival who makes everything worse. Rothfuss's prose is exceptional. Note: book 3 remains unfinished with no publication date.
Check price on Amazon →The Way of Kings — Brandon Sanderson (2010)
A world battered by storms. A soldier, a scholar, and a thief converge on a conspiracy that threatens everything. Sanderson's magic systems are the most rigorously designed in fantasy — they have rules, costs, and limitations. The Stormlight Archive is the most ambitious fantasy series currently being written. Five books published; five planned. If you loved the sense of a world with consistent, knowable magic rules, this is essential reading.
Check price on Amazon →The Lies of Locke Lamora — Scott Lynch (2006)
A gang of extraordinarily talented con artists in a fantasy Venice. Lynch writes the best ensemble fantasy chemistry since Rowling — the Gentleman Bastards feel like the Weasley twins crossed with Ocean's Eleven. Dark humour, genuine stakes, excellent world-building, and a revenge plot that gathers force across the novel's second half. Series ongoing with three books published.
Check price on Amazon →Piranesi — Susanna Clarke (2020)
A man lives in a house that contains the entire world — infinite halls, tidal statues, and skeletons of the dead. He keeps meticulous journals. Clarke's second novel is 272 pages long, mysterious from the first page, and one of the most original fantasy novels of the decade. Nothing quite prepares you for how it resolves. If you found Jonathan Strange daunting in length, start here.
Check price on Amazon →Frequently Asked Questions
My child finished Harry Potter at age 9 — what should they read next?
Start with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (ages 8+) — same structure, five books, Greek mythology. Then The Chronicles of Narnia if they haven't read them. After that, the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan (medieval setting, mentor/apprentice, 12 books) bridges beautifully to longer fantasy.
Is there a Harry Potter for adults that matches the magic school setting exactly?
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell doesn't have a school setting but is the closest adult equivalent in literary ambition. For an actual university setting, The Name of the Wind and The Magicians both use a school for magic as a central location, with very different tones (Rothfuss: lyrical and romantic; Grossman: dark and satirical).
What is the reading order for the expanded Harry Potter universe?
Read the seven main novels first. After completing them: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (short illustrated companion), Quidditch Through the Ages (same format), and The Tales of Beedle the Bard (fairy tales within the HP world). Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a stage play script set 19 years later — most fans treat it as optional. The Fantastic Beasts film series is set in the 1920s and is separate from the main story.