Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, beginning with *Every Heart a Doorway*. Fantastic twist on YA portal fantasy.
Books 2 and 5 (*Down Among the Sticks and Bones* and *Come Tumbling Down*) are particularly dark.
Formal_Llama on
The Magicians might suit. It’s a new adult series, so sort of between YA and adult, and the portal aspects of it get…quite dark.
Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry is also a dark series. The Summer Tree is the first book.
TashKat on
Depends how much optimism you want with the dark. Ascendance of a Bookworm seems like a cute little slice of life portal fantasy, and it is. The main character makes everyone’s lives better in the end. But there is a very dark side to this fantasy world. The nobles are literally chosen by the Gods so are even more cruel at times than medieval aristocracy. Orphanages are not run to save children but to raise slaves for nobles, girls born with magic outside nobility are trafficked as breeding sows. Noble girls born out of wedlock are treated no better. It’s pretty dark at times, but in a “everything will get better someday” kind of way.
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Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, beginning with *Every Heart a Doorway*. Fantastic twist on YA portal fantasy.
Books 2 and 5 (*Down Among the Sticks and Bones* and *Come Tumbling Down*) are particularly dark.
The Magicians might suit. It’s a new adult series, so sort of between YA and adult, and the portal aspects of it get…quite dark.
Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry is also a dark series. The Summer Tree is the first book.
Depends how much optimism you want with the dark. Ascendance of a Bookworm seems like a cute little slice of life portal fantasy, and it is. The main character makes everyone’s lives better in the end. But there is a very dark side to this fantasy world. The nobles are literally chosen by the Gods so are even more cruel at times than medieval aristocracy. Orphanages are not run to save children but to raise slaves for nobles, girls born with magic outside nobility are trafficked as breeding sows. Noble girls born out of wedlock are treated no better. It’s pretty dark at times, but in a “everything will get better someday” kind of way.