Ok so this might be weird. I personally love dark stories and dark fantasy is my favorite genre of fiction, but my favorite series all have something in common: Hope. I mainly read manga so I dont know many book examples (Perhaps mistborn would fit?)
My favorite piece of media ever is Berserk, and what I love the most about Berserk is its message (Or atleast my interpretation) and that is: hope and healing, imo. Vinland Saga is an even better example, I love seeing dark, messed up worlds where finding evil and horrors is pretty common, but I love even more seeing characters trying to improve themselves or the messed up world they live in.
I love the feeling of light at the end of a very dark tunnel, of beauty in living a horrible reality.
“This world is cruel, but I still love you” is a quote from Attack on Titan, and I think it sums up my feelings on dark fantasy. I would love to read books where hope remains, where there is still beauty in living. Doesn’t need to have happy endings where everyoned lives happily ever after, but I would like happy endings where you feel fulfilled, “Happy” (My interpretation of a happy ending is fullfilemnt and not necessarily a Disney happy ending) endings where the feeling you are left with when you finish the story isn’t “The world is shit and life has no meaning”.
by Hiretsuna_Ketsuruki
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For a blend of myth and reality, ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman is a book I find myself recommending time and again. Gaiman’s tale explores the gods of old myths and their struggle to survive in modern America, a place of new gods like technology and media.
The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K Jemisin is dark, but it’s built around a core of hope that stops it being grim
The Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler is simultaneously the darkest and most hopeful thing I’ve read