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I second Jacqueline Carey. Well written, strong female heroine.

Have you read any of Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy? Discovery of Witches, etc?

Or male authors: Justin Cronin - The Passage, The Twelve or Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next series or Shades of Grey?

also just finished reading read Meljean Brooks' The Iron Duke. interesting alternative history with mechanised people . took me a while to work out how this world all worked.

thumbs- ipad - posted too early

juliet marillier

her female heroines have various magical abilities, and are thinkers and doers. (but not in kick em down sort of way) .

Juliet Marillier -
She has written several different series covering Pictish Scotland and pre-christian Ireland.
female heroines on all of them

the True Blood books are all written in first person - as if the writer were Sookie. Massive Mary Sue, omg.

Scarlett Thomas-The end of Mr Y, is a little dark, but a good read. She's wrote a couple more, but I haven't got round to reading them yet.

Try your local library for ideas too and save some pennies; lot's of them do e books too now, if you are interested.

Have you read any if the True Blood books. Easy reading and a bit more grown up than Twilight

I second Anne Mccaffrey.

For preference, though, if you want a strong and extremely sassy heroin. Lots of swordplay (kickass fights), humour in the writing and a host of magic and shapeshifters.... I heartily recommend the Ilona Andrews 'Magic Bites' series.
I absolutely love it.

Its. Darn autocorrect

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is amazing, I can't recommend it highly enough. Also it's sequel Wise Man's Fear. I can't wait for the third to come out.

Sam Stone writes some excellent fiction.

Seconding everyone who's recommended Lois McMaster Bujold, Laini Taylor, Katharine Kerr and Suzanne Collins.

Would also suggest anything by Kate Elliott, N. K. Jemisin and Tamora Pierce.

Try the host. Same author as twilight but very different. I really enjoyed it. How about Joanne Harris runemarks. Reminded me of Philip Pullman northern lights series.

And I second the Ursula LeGuin suggestion, I'd definitely want to re-read those too!

I love the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's more SF than fantasy and the lead character is male but there are also strong female characters in them. In fact in the first two books of the series the main character is Miles' mother. The whole series is quite thought provoking but still quite light and funny in places. I really want to read them all again!! She's also written some fantasy which I haven't read and some of those might have female lead characters?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the sequel are breathtakingly good - totally agree about the visual style Valdeeves - some sentences I would just sit and savour over and over!

Another I recently enjoyed was Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas - I got so involved with this that I immediately downloaded all the previous short novellas she had written with the same character!

I would echo - Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Lainie Taylor isn an artist and her style is so visual it's mesmerising,

Angela Carter's writing is fantastic - and the books of fairytales that she edited will introduce you to all sorts of excellent writing.

I love the short stories of Sara Maitland - something like "The Book of Spells".

I've also just finished reading "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern and really enjoyed it.

The Darkness in the Shadows- m l briers. It has vampires too but nothing like Twilight- sex- drinking of human blood and are extremely sarcastic.

Robin McKinley! Robin McKinley! Robin McKinley! Robin McKinley! Sunshine by her does have vampires in it - but is v. non-twilighty IMHO.

Can recommend daughter of the empire trilogy by Raymond e feist and Janny Wurts.

I was going to suggest Anne McAffrey too, MrsSnaplegs - the Pern books and her other fantasy novels too.

Woman on the edge of time by Marge Piercy.

Ah my suggestions have already been suggested. Daughter of smoke and bones is great although very light. Discovery of witches is an amazing amazing book but lots of history in it.