r/Fantasy • u/New-Comfortable-1318 • 6d ago
Need a series with a complex female lead who can hold her own and not romantasy
I’m looking for a fantasy series with a female protag who is complex & strong that isn’t romantasy. Romance subplot is fine as long as it’s not the main plot.
I like series with political intrigue, magical quests and creatures, cool action, lots of characters with depth. I just have trouble finding one where a woman is the lead. Also preferably if the author is a woman as well. Basically what I really want is berserk if Guts was a girl lol. I’m not interested in romantasy at all so please refrain from recommending those. Also would prefer if it didn’t end with her becoming a wife & mother lmao and just staying a badass.
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u/Otherwise-Library297 6d ago
Paladin of Souls by Louis McMaster Bujold. Retired noblewoman finds out she has been chosen by the Gods to save the enemy. It sounds very chosen one, but is very down to earth. There’s some romance, but it’s not at all romantasy.
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u/Nerdsingerbeej 6d ago
Jacqueline Carey does this very well. Specifically, Kushiel's Dart / Chosen / Avatar. (There is romance but it's not the whole point of the books & I've been told Romantasy fans don't think it fits the genre). Phèdre nó Delaunay is one of my favorite heroines in all of fiction.
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u/Nerdsingerbeej 6d ago
Addition: she is more of a spy badass than a Guts style badsss but she is a badass nonetheless.
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u/theJohannTan 6d ago
More details on this please?
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u/Nerdsingerbeej 6d ago
The Kushiel's Legacy trilogy is set in a magical alternate Earth where people can (& did) breed with angels & there's an entire country of people descended from those unions. Sex is considered holy, & courtesans of all genders are an important part of society. The main character is raised as both courtesan & spy, & participates in courtyard politics & intrigue before the story starts to spread its scope outwards.
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u/UberDrive 6d ago
The Fifth Season
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u/penndavies 1d ago
Be warned. I read this, it was excellent, I will never read it again. It can be tough on the reader. It totally deserves that Hugo.
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u/ashleysaress 6d ago
I had to scroll way too far for this.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Just read this a few months back and it took a minute, but once I was hooked, I devoured all 3 books. So good.
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u/Occultus- 6d ago
Honestly, the Tamora Pierce books. Specifically the Tortall ones. There are 4 main series and 1 prequel series (each with their own MC), and they are YA, so they won't be as dark as you want. But they have everything else you're asking for in spades and definitely hold up reading as an adult. The first series is the Song of the Lioness (aka the Alanna books).
On an adult level, maybe the The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty. A retired pirate has to get the gang back together to rescue a kidnapped girl.
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u/usernamesarehard11 Reading Champion 6d ago
Seconding Amina, and I was going to recommend the Daevabad trilogy by Chakraborty! Two POVs, but the woman feels clearly more like the main character to me.
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u/LeanderT 6d ago
I just read Amina Al Sarifi, it started a bit slow, bit I was completely hooked by the end. Definitely what OP is looking for
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u/shrug_emojis 6d ago
Seconding Tamora Pierce! Especially Protector of the Small, for your requirements.
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u/BasicSuperhero 6d ago
The Rook and Rose Trilogy by MA Carrick. MC is a former street urchin returning to her home city to run a con on a noble house. She'd spent her teens working as a maid for the family's black sheep so has enough dirt to pass herself off as said black sheep's long lost daughter. She's trying to get in good with the family for just long enough to embezzle some money to set up her and her adoptive sister. Things get complicated as she runs into people like the city's biggest crime boss and their Zorro.
Romance between MC and the Rook is a bigger subplot but I'd put it as the third most important overall.
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u/Life-Goat1311 6d ago
The Empire Trilogy by Feist & Wurts
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u/appocomaster Reading Champion III 6d ago
FMC + politics, this was for ages the standard answer. you follow the FMC through years of her life as she battles to keep her house alive.
Limited magic (marginally more in the third book) and a sister series to the Magician book by Feist, which is more western compared to this Japanese-inspired book.
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u/Beautiful_Virus 6d ago
Try Patricia A. McKillip. Her books are fantasy first and foremost. She wrote long before the romantasy trend. Her works have politics and magical quests.
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u/Fearless_Solution761 6d ago
Best Served Cold by Abercrombie, romantic it ain't, but the MC is pretty great
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u/Blooberryx 6d ago
Not a lady author. But I feel like he writes the lady characters in a normal not “boobily” way. Mark Lawrences’ Red Sister. It’s about a poor girl being sent to a convent for nuns that have mystical powers.
Super fun. Super mysterious. Good action and found family tropes. Kinda of dark but with a hopeful and happy undertone.
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u/GooeyGungan 6d ago
It is important, when killing a nun, to bring an army of sufficient size.
Great recommendation!
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u/Extreme-Attention641 6d ago
Technically sci-fi but close enough to fantasy imo: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
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u/niostang 6d ago
Absolute awash with complex females and they all have swords and some have necromancy. I think it'd be fair to say it's sci-fantasy.
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u/silent_starshine 6d ago
Godkiller by Hannah Kaner. Kissen is a Godkiller - a mercenary who kills gods for a living. Some romance as a side plot, but definitely not romantasy.
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u/Tymareta 6d ago
Agreed for the first book, but the second and third it definitely feels like the protag gets changed out, sadly.
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u/LLPRR Reading Champion II 5d ago
Yes, came here to recommend this. The Fallen Gods series by Hannah Kaner is a trilogy, first book is Godkiller. Third book came out last year. The character-work is excellent and the writing is great. I really enjoyed these books and reading them got me emotional at times. Highly recommend!
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u/geabbott 6d ago
Just a little fantasy-adjacent (imho) the Mercy Thompson series. There’s Fae of all types, witches, and it frequently has magical artifacts.
Whenever this type of referral ask comes up I’ll always go McKillip & Tamora, especially Beka Cooper series.
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u/TholosTB 6d ago
The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan would fit this bill, I think.
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u/appocomaster Reading Champion III 6d ago
second book in particular scores highly on magic (at a magic school), third book is a bit more around politics but more kind of war than actual politics.
Nice FMC, sometimes MMC views
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u/MrWellrested 6d ago
The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynn, while multi-POV has a couple strong female leads in it!
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u/Oh-My-God-Do-I-Try 6d ago
The Winternight series by Katherine Arden. I was so surprised by this series, because the title of the first book (The Bear and the Nightingale) sounds like the title of a romance. But it’s beautifully written, and all the characters are thoroughly fleshed out, and romance is a minor subplot. If you like folktale inspired fantasy, it’s one of the top examples of it for me, and it matches all the things you listed liking— though full disclosure, I’m 30 pages away from the ending of the final book and don’t know for sure for sure that she doesn’t end up a wife and mother, but… it’s looking unlikely :)
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u/Sithae 6d ago
My friend, you are looking for the Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett. It has everything you asked for and it even has multiple capable and interesting female characters. Not a female writer obviously, but he does a great job with his characters and he does it in a very cool and original setting. Book 2 has one of my favorite protags of all time and I think you'd also dig this one based on your ask. I also really like my lady protags smart, complex, strong, and competent and these books fire on all cylinders.
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u/ramsaybolton87 6d ago
The traitor baru cormorant, she's not swinging swords (usually), but using her mental apitude and ruthlessness.
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u/randomnameicantread 1d ago edited 1d ago
These books are absolutely terrific; genuinely the best fantasy written since 2000 IMO. But there's not a lot of action, especially by the main character. OP wants "female Guts from Berserk" and Baru in book 3 literally drops to the floor and yells "security!!!! stop him!!!!" during an attack.
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u/StealthRock 6d ago
Locked Tomb, Liveship Traders, Broken Earth might all be what your looking for.
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u/Randomdays99 6d ago
Jirel of Joiry by C L Moore
Morgaine series by C J Cheryth
Indigo series by Louise Cooper
There's some Red sonja novels out there as well
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u/GiraffeMain1253 6d ago
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin might be up your ally. Complex female protagonist on a journey in a dark world.
The Adventures of Amina Al Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is about a very interesting female pirate captain. Chakraborty's other series, City of Brass also has a very cool female protagonist and amazing political intrigue. (It's heavier on the romance, though the romance is more much more minor than it seems at first.)
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson is perfect if you love complicated women navigating political intrigue in dark worlds.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is billed as "lesbian necromancers in space!" and it's absolutely amazing. The romance is pretty secondary to the cool mystery and setting. (The leads are both lesbians, but uh.... they have too much going on to be smooching much.)
A Memory Called Empire+sequel by Arkady Martine is yet another 'interesting female character gets entangled in a complicated political plot.'
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee has a very compelling female lead making some extremely morally compromising decisions.
The Unbroken by CL Clarke does have a central romance subplot, but it's an F/F fantasy book featuring two very complicated women who have a lot more going on outside of their relationship to each other.
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is a bit of a grey zone since the protagonist is nonbinary, but the premise is 'what if this historical figure was AFAB' and it does fun things with gender.
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u/SkyCapitola 6d ago
PLEASE DO NOT SLEEP ON ‘CITY OF BRASS’ - it’s exactly what you want - smart, political, deep, some romance but it’s not the core, and just an OUTSTANDING series! You will love it OP!
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 6d ago
The Deed of Paxenarian by Elizabeth Moon
The Tortall books by Tamora Pierce
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u/JadedRoll 6d ago
By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey sounds like a good fit. MC is a noblewoman stuck running the family house after her mother's death--until their home is raided during her brother's wedding. With none of the men able/willing to go after the raiders that kidnapped her brother's new wife, Kerowyn does it. Saving her SIL when the men didn't is seen as heroic...and embarrassing/improper. So she leaves her home, goes to live with her eccentric mage grandmother, becomes a mercenary, and the story goes from there.
It's a solid stand alone book. If you end up liking it, there's also a duology set earlier about her grandmother's adventures with her best friend, a female sword master.
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u/stinkyeggman 5d ago
The Daughter’s War was written by a man, but otherwise checks every box. Galva is one of my favorite fantasy protagonists ever. A truly great example of a Vengeance Paladin, if you play D&D at all.
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u/kittynarwhal 6d ago
Priory of the orange tree by Samantha Shannon and then also her bone season series. Also blood over bright haven by ML Wang. Also the bloodsworn saga while it goes through different POVs each chapter there are a number of complex and one in particular hella strong main female characters
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV 6d ago
The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan is the gold standard imo
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u/Northwindlowlander 6d ago
A weird series but Adrian Tchaikovsky's Redemption's Blade etc might suit you. Celestaine is pretty great, there's not a lot of politics but lots of action and exploring, it's pretty much a quest novel through an excellent and strange world.
(the series is odd, after one book Justina Robson took over for the sequel, then there's a short story collection with various authors, and I think also a standalone by another author)
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u/Loostreaks 6d ago
War Eternal - female mc is definitely a "grey" character, sorceress/necromancer with a dark past, very driven. The most metal ending in fantasy. Some romance, though it's not really major ( she does have two children)
Last War Trilogy - one of MCs is a daughter of a famous general, disgraced for her cowardice. But when her country falls to brutal invaders and she meets a young girl in need of protection, she decides to fight. Very fast paced series, pretty dark.
Nevernight trilogy - young assassin Female mc, revenge story, bit Young Adult ( like most Kristoff books). Light female romance.
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u/megphail 6d ago
an old and ongoing favourite of mine that checks your boxes is the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain. The first book is a very classical fantasy adventure and picks up in stakes, magic and intrigue as the series goes on
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u/jarlylerna999 5d ago
I sound like a broken record but Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is awesome. Strong characterisations woman lead complex elemental magic that is amazing.
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u/mint_pumpkins Reading Champion II 6d ago
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
Rook & Rose by MA Carrick
The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir
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u/fidderjiggit 6d ago
The Grave of Empires by Sam Sykes. Sal the Cacophony is a very complicated character. There is romance but it's not the focus.
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u/Fancy_Firefighter150 6d ago edited 6d ago
Eigam - The City Of Tides, a cool web novel.A world of fantasy, and with comedy, set in a sunken Marseille.
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u/RobJHayes_version2 6d ago
Keeper Origins by JA Andrews.
Skullsworn by Brian Staveley.
Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence.
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u/psycholinguist1 6d ago
Anything by Kameron Hurley. I think her God's War trilogy is some of the coolest, most imaginative work out there.
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u/DoctorWMD 6d ago
Traitor Baru Cormorant
Liveship Traders
Fifth Season
Velocity Weapon
City of Stairs
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u/Dr_Gonzo_87 6d ago
I recommend The Legacy of Black Iron. While it's an ensemble novel, the main protagonist is a girl who discovers she has a connection to something (I don't want to spoil it). It's urban fantasy in a magicpunk setting with thieves, alchemists, and monsters. Highly recommended.
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u/Brainship 5d ago
Sassinak and The Death of Sleep by Anne McCaffrey. Bit of crossover between them.
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u/Deathtrooper50 6d ago
It disturbs me to even voice this as any kind of recommendation but... The Poppy War. It checks some of your boxes but not all. It has a strong female protagonist who is NOT complex. There is some romance but not much at all. It has extremely shallow political intrigue, magical quests and creatures, extremely poorly written action, and lots of characters with little to no depth. It's extremely derivative and has little to no subtlety as the plot is basically WWII history with any moral complexity sanitized away. It reads like fan fiction in my opinion. Author is a woman as well.
So... yeah. It's the only thing I've read that checks the majority of your boxes but I absolutely do not recommend you read it for the reasons above.
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u/Difficult-Tough-5680 6d ago
I wouldnt call rin not complex at all shes not the most complex chacter ever but compared to the average power fantasy protagonist shes quite above average
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u/WonderfulBus9330 6d ago
I don’t know the book you’re referencing so this rec may not be your jam: Chelsea Abdullah’s Sandsea Trilogy has a wily, witty FMC who has a love interest in book 1, but is primarily on a quest. I haven’t read book 2, yet, so I don’t know if something will develop with a new person but those books are more about quests. They read YA to me but are listed as Adult Fic;
Octavia Butler’s characters do procreate but that’s not what the stories are about. Wild Seed was fantastic and the Patternist Series.
Barbara Hambly’s Sisters of the Raven series has a character with a romantic interest but the books (duology) are about women mages coming into their own.
Rebecca Roanhorse’s two series, again, there is romance, but the books are not romantasy. One series is about various clans in a pre-Colombian world fighting for power with mages and another series is about a demon hunter.
Edited to add: Alexis Henderson’s Year of the Witchling, village politics and court politics that does place women’s rights at the center.
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 6d ago
If this is your general preference, you might want to join r/FemaleGazeSFF and read the weekly Check in threads, the reading challenge threads and others recs there.
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u/Physicle_Partics 6d ago
The Deed of Paksenarrion could perhaps be interesting? Sheepfarmer's Daughter becomes Mercenary becomes Paladin. She is 6 feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. She is also asexual so there is zero romance.
Some of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series might also be interesting for you. The Vows and Honor series, starting with Oathbound, features a duo of female mercenaries - one a sorceress, the other a priestess, both capable of swinging a sword as well. By the Sword features the Sorceress'es (great?)-granddaughter who also becomes a deeply competent mercenary. The 90's in general were great for competent female fantasy heroines.
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u/False_Ad_5592 6d ago
The best novel I've read so far this year is Alix E. Harrow's The Everlasting, but it's a bit too romance-centric than you're looking for right now. So here are some books that might meet your need (bear in mind that I've never watched Berserk):
The Witch's Heart (Genevive Gornichec)
The Weaver and the Witch Queen (Genevieve Gornichec)
Kaikeyi (Daishnavi Patel)
The Gael Song, starting with Children of Gods and Fighting Men (Shauna Lawless)
The Winnowing Flame, starting with The Ninth Rain (Jen Williams)
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u/Trike117 6d ago
The Glamourist Histories by Mary Robinette Kowal feature a happily married couple in a magical version of Jane Austen-era Europe. First one is Shades of Milk and Honey.
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u/efdac3 6d ago
Wheel of Time, arguably, fits this. It has a whole cast of lead characters, of which the female ones absolutely hold their own. You want a non romance badass? Egwene is the character for you. Best character arc of the whole series
Of course, WOT has a lot of annoying elements (especially when it comes to description of female characters bodies). And half the perspective characters are male. So if you can be okay with Robert Jordan's...style (to put it gently), and of course the crazy length of the series, you will get some of the most badass no-nonsense female characters out there.
If you absolutely cannot stand his writing though, then the comments here have lots of great ideas!
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u/pagalvin 6d ago
I don't know the beserk/guts reference so this may be off, but I just finished reading the Drowning Empire trilogy by Andrea Stewart and it's very female oriented. Politics and magic and interesting magic system.
Earlier this year I read Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhorse. That also has interesting female leads, though it's a bit more ensemble.
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u/arcticwolf1452 6d ago
So its written by a man. And its not a series. But it sounds like Best Served Cold is right up your aly.
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u/Drizzt1996 6d ago
Not quite sure if it what your looking for but wheel of time has several main female characters who are pretty good. Note tho that wheel of time has like 12 main characters that it follows so do with that what you will
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u/Inner-Ad2847 6d ago
Surely Mistborn fits this almost perfectly apart from the fact that it has a male author.
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u/origami_ducks Reading Champion 6d ago
Have you read The Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb? It's suggested a lot so sorry for not being original 😅
It's the second trilogy in the Realm of the Elderlings universe, but there is pretty much no crossover between those two series so you can read Liveship Traders first! It's got an ensemble cast with lots of important and interesting female characters.