Books like Shannon Hale

Kate Sutton is no storybook beauty or effortless courtier; she is observant, stubborn, and underestimated. Exiled to a remote manor, she begins to notice troubling gaps in the household’s explanations—and traces of an older, stranger world beneath them.

Like Ani, Kate survives by paying attention and thinking clearly rather than by becoming a conventional warrior. Pope’s restrained magic feels genuinely ancient, while the romance grows from respect, sacrifice, and difficult choices. This Newbery Honor novel has become a quiet classic of young-adult fantasy: readers who find it often treasure it precisely because it never cheapens its heroine’s intelligence.

Meliara begins as an idealistic rebel who knows how to fight in the hills but almost nothing about the subtler dangers of royal power. Her education in leadership, appearances, and courtly language is funny, painful, and immensely satisfying.

The kinship with The Goose Girl lies in that widening understanding of what it means to rule well. Smith also delivers one of fantasy’s most rewarding slow-burn romances, built through argument, misjudgment, and gradually revised opinions. Long beloved among readers of character-driven YA fantasy, Crown Duel is the book to choose if Ani’s emergence as a politically capable young woman thrilled you as much as the magic did.

On the island of Thisby, deadly water horses emerge from the sea each autumn, and Puck Connolly intends to enter the race that has always belonged to men. Sean Kendrick understands the horses better than anyone, but understanding them does not make them tame.

Stiefvater recreates the elemental intensity that makes The Goose Girl so memorable: wind and weather seem alive, communication with animals becomes nearly sacred, and courage is quiet rather than showy. The romance unfolds through shared work and watchfulness, never overwhelming either character’s private stakes. A Printz Honor book with a fiercely devoted readership, it has the rare, haunting atmosphere of a legend that somehow contains two completely believable people.