Books that meet high moral standards and contain limited foul language, sexual content, and descriptions of violence.
- Before using this list, please read my disclaimer.
- Every book on this list meets “My Clean Reading Criteria” and is one that I finished, liked, and felt was worth my time to read. To learn more about the purpose of this list please see “About Novaun Novels.”
- For information on how I classify religious fiction, please see “Is Fiction Marketed to Latter-day Saints ‘Christian Fiction’?” For how I evaluate religious content in the books I read, please see “What About Doctrinal Differences?“
- All descriptions in quotation marks come from the book jackets or other descriptions from the publishers. Follow the author links to the corresponding Project Gutenberg pages. Follow the title links to the page, post, or Goodreads review that contains my commentary on the book.
Fairy Tales (Danish classic)
“Writing in the midst of a Europe-wide rebirth of national literature, Anderson broke new ground with his fairy tales in two important ways. First, he composed them in the vernacular, mimicking the language he used in telling them to children aloud. Second, he set his tales in his own land and time, giving rise to his loving descriptions of the Danish countryside.”
Note: I read the English translation by Marte Hvam Hult
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (historical fantasy)
“At Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England’s magical past and regained some of the powers of England’s magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French. All goes well until a rival magician appears.”
The Ladies of Grace Adieu (historical fantasy)
“With Clarke’s characteristic historical detail and diction, these dark, enchanting tales unfold in a slightly distorted version of our own world, where people are bedeviled by mischievous interventions from the fairies.”
Costain, Thomas B.
Below the Salt (historical fiction in a fantasy frame)
U.S. Senator O’Rawn mysteriously summons aspiring novelist John Foraday and gives him an account of the violent events that led to the Magna Charta, intertwined with the story of a lost princess.
A Christmas Carol (English classic)
“Cruel miser Ebeneezer Scrooge has never met a shilling he doesn’t like…and hardly a man he does. And he hates Christmas most of all. When Scrooge is visited by his old partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, he learns eternal lessons of charity, kindness, and goodwill.”
Dunn, Mark
Ella Minnow Pea (allegory)
“Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop.”
Dyreng, Chelsea
The Cenote (historical fantasy romance)
“Forced to marry a complete stranger, Sandpiper tries to adjust to life in her new village. But the mysterious Cenote, a great pool of water, has bewitched the men of the village, and Sandpiper must know why.”
The Last Messenger of Zitol (historical fantasy romance)
“Taken captive to the magnificent kingdom of Zitol, an ancient American city with a passion for food, gold, and human sacrifice, Rishi is forced to decide between betraying her virtue or being sacrificed to the city’s pagan gods.”
Hilton, James
Lost Horizon (historical fantasy)
“High in the distant reaches of the Tibetan mountains . . . a group of worldly men and women have stumbled upon a land of mystery and matchless beauty, where life is lived in tranquil wonder, beyond the grasp of a doomed world.”
Lewis, C.S.
The Great Divorce (Christian allegory)
“C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce is a classic Christian allegorical tale about a bus ride from hell to heaven. An extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment, Lewis’s revolutionary idea in the The Great Divorce is that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside.”
The Screwtape Letters (Christian satire)
“The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior ‘tempter’ named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as ‘the Patient’.”
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (mythic fantasy)
“Disfigured and embittered, Orual loves her younger sister to a fault and suffers deeply when she is sent away to Cupid, the God of the Mountain. Psyche is forbidden to look upon the god’s face, but is persuaded by her sister to do so; she is banished for her betrayal. Orual is left alone to grow in power but never in love, to wonder at the silence of the gods. Only at the end of her life, in visions of her lost beloved sister, will she hear an answer.”
Livesey, Margot
Eva Moves the Furniture (historical fantasy)
“On the morning of Eva McEwen’s birth, six magpies congregate in the apple tree outside the window—a bad omen, according to Scottish legend. That night, Eva’s mother dies, leaving her to be raised by her aunt and heartsick father in their small Scottish town. As a child, Eva is often visited by two companions—a woman and a girl—invisible to everyone else save her. As she grows, their intentions become increasingly unclear: Do they wish to protect or harm her?”
Lund, Gerald N.
The Freedom Factor (Christian fiction, Latter-day Saint)
“Nathaniel Gorham, an original Founding Father, visits young Bryce Sherwood, a rising aide to a Washington senator and a key player in an attempt to pass an amendment that would eliminate the checks and balances built into the Constitution. When Bryce refuses to change his position, Gorham transports him into a world where the Constitution was never ratified.”
Nathan, Robert
Portrait of Jennie (historical fantasy romance)
“Was Jennie a dream a memory, a lovely ghost from the past? Or had she stepped from another world into this? Eben Adams could only guess at the answer. But he understood that Jennie, because she dared to love him, had fused past and present into the delightful, delicate magic of ‘now.’”
Orwell, George
Animal Farm (English classic)
“A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality.”
Twain, Mark (pen name of Samuel Clemens)
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (American classic)
“This novel tells the story of Hank Morgan, the quintessential self-reliant New Englander who brings to King Arthur’s Age of Chivalry the ‘great and beneficent’ miracles of nineteenth-century engineering and American ingenuity.”
The Mansion (American classic)
“Rich and miserly John Weightman dreams one night that he has died and is traveling to the Celestial City, where each person is rewarded with a mansion according to how they lived their life.”
The Story of the Other Wise Man (American classic)
“Long, long ago, a wise man named Artaban, a priest of the Magi, discerned from heavenly signs that the time was at hand for the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy–the birth among the Hebrews of a holy Prince and Deliverer of Man. Hastening to join three fellow Magi for the long journey into Judaea, he paused to help a dying man and was left behind. And so Artaban began his pilgrimage alone, striking out not toward the realization of his life’s deepest longing, as he hoped, but only toward misfortune and suffering. Or so he believed until one blessed, radiant moment.”
Wrede, Patricia C.
Mairelon series:
1. Mairelon the Magician (historical fantasy)
“Kim doesn’t hesitate when a stranger offers her a small fortune to break into the travelling magician’s wagon in search of a silver bowl. . . . But there is something odd about this magician. He isn’t like the other hucksters and swindlers that Kim is used to. When he catches her in the act, Kim thinks she’s done for. Until he suggests she become his apprentice. Kim wonders how tough it could be faking a bit of hocus pocus. But Mairelon isn’t an act. His magic is real.”
2. Magician’s Ward (historical fantasy romance)
“When Mairelon made Kim his ward, he promised to teach her to be a lady and a magician. But magic proves to be harder than it looks for a girl who has just learned to read, and being a lady is even harder. Before frustration—and Merrill’s formidably correct aunt—can drive her mad, a mysterious gentleman attempts to burgle the Merrill town house. As disaster strikes Mairelon, Kim must negotiate the hazards of London society, aided by a London moneylender, a Russian wizard prince, seven legendary French wizards…and Mairelon’s charmingly eccentric mother.”
The featured image “Dreamlike D.C.” is Copyright © 2022 by Katherine Padilla. All rights reserved.
