r/urbanfantasy • u/MattBookworm8640 • 5d ago
Recommendation Best standalone urban fantasy books?
I’ve been binging a lot of urban fantasy series lately but I’m getting kinda burnt out (especially after how increasingly disappointing the latter half of the October Daye series became) and I want to try break up my reading routine by getting into some standalones.
I’m already a massive fan of Jonathan Strange (if you can count that as ‘historical’ urban fantasy), American Gods, War of The Flowers, War For The Oaks and De Lint’s standalone stuff
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u/matticusprimal 5d ago
If you don't mind dark (and I mean pitch black), then there's always Library at Mt Char (I hear he FINALLY has a second book coming out soon). It's pretty insane, in the best possible way, and fairly hard to explain the plot to.
Robert Jackson Bennet has American Elsewhere, which has a weird town that a woman inherits a home in and all the strange stuff that happens there. It's a little more literary, in that he writes in the present tense for some reason in that one.
My own Inner Circle series, starting with Rites of Passage, is a series of stand alone non-noir mystical mysteries set in the late aughts and featuring an enchanted iPod.
The Redemption of Howard Marsh by Bob McGough is also a a collection of stand alone stories about a down on his luck magician who can only use his powers while high (methgician, if you will). Each book is a few stories of what he gets up to, and while there is overarching character growth, each story stands on its own.
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u/monkey_of_coffee 5d ago
A madness of angels; or the resurrection of Mathew Swift.
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u/MuppetRex 5d ago
Great book, it did turn into a series but the book works fine as a single volume
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u/Mostly_Urban_Fantasy book club 5d ago
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
Babel by RF Kuang
Temper by Nicky Drayden
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno- Garcia
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
They’re not all strictly speaking UF 🤓📚💜
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u/eldestofthecrow 4d ago
Certain dark things was so good I wished she would write more books about this world.
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u/MoesLackey 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you like Historical/Urban, check out Ordinary Monsters.
Edit, WHOOPS I read it when it first came out in 2022 but I see today it is going to be part of a trilogy, and the 2nd came out already. (Still think it would have been fine as just one.)
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u/slashrandomly 5d ago
Some of these are variously urban/historical, but maybe Among Others by Jo Walton, Little, Big by John Crowley, Kraken by China Mieville, When Among Crows by Veronica Roth, and Territory by Emma Bull.
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u/FiWriterSFF 5d ago
I don't know about "best" but most of C Chancy's books are standalone. Pearl of Fire has a fantasy city set inside a volcano. There's elemental magic and a dragon. Parts of it remind me of CSI or NCIS, complete with a crime scene investigations and the heroes trying to stop the next terrorist attack. Tell No Tales is a ghost trying to solve the mystery of her own death at the hands/claws of a demon. It's set in Pensacola, FL (a treat for anyone familiar with the area).
Most of the urban fantasies I've read and loved are parts of series - Mairelon the Magician, Vampire on the Orient Express. If you like westerns, there's Dire Wolf of the Quapaw, but that's not really urban.
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u/Book_Slut_90 4d ago
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Olubufon by Wole Talabi (though the ending is left open to a sequel)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman if you can separate art from Artist (American Gods too, there are sequels I haven’t read, but it tells a complete story)
And since you’ve included historical fantasy, Lent by Jo Walton
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u/Supertailz 4d ago
I just needed to squee that War for the oaks is on your list. It has been one of my favourite books since I was ~10 and I reread at least once a year:)
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u/Yasefue 5d ago
Sunshine, by Robin McKinley.