What if the most interesting job in a fantasy world belongs to the person who has to get the mail delivered? In Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal, that person is a con man. In T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, a teenage baker’s most useful colleague is her sourdough starter.
Think of these 12 fantasy books as a job board for worlds with magic. Each listing comes with a duty you’ll be glad to experience from the safety of your couch. Some lead to cozy found families, others to murder investigations, and one might make you care about the inner workings of the civil service.
Where to start. Pick Going Postal for comedy, The Tainted Cup for a locked-room mystery, or The Teller of Small Fortunes for a gentler adventure. If you want a fantasy novel that makes a long career in public service feel worth reading about, try The Hands of the Emperor.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
1. Postmaster — Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Your first assignment. Deliver a few decades’ worth of overdue mail.
Convicted con artist Moist von Lipwig gets a second chance in the form of an appointment as Ankh-Morpork’s postmaster. The letters have piled up, the building is falling apart, and a rival communications network has already changed how the city gets its messages. Pratchett gives Moist a wonderfully awkward problem. His best chance of rebuilding public trust is to use all the skills he developed while betraying it. Start here if you like a caper with a grudge against bad management. For more entry points, see our Discworld reading order.
2. Bread wizard — A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Your first assignment. Figure out what dough can do in a crisis.
Fourteen-year-old Mona can work magic on bread, a talent that comes in handy at her aunt’s bakery. Then she finds a body on the bakery floor. There’s an obvious joke in giving a young wizard a sourdough familiar, and Kingfisher gets plenty of mileage out of it. The satisfying part is watching Mona reason through what her particular skill can do when the adults leave her with problems far bigger than a batch of rolls.
Find A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking on Amazon
3. Coffee-shop owner — Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Your first assignment. Sell coffee in a city that barely knows what it is.
Viv, an orc who has spent years adventuring, opens a coffee shop in Thune. Finding a place, building a menu, and giving people a reason to come back take up real space in the story. That’s the pleasure of it. You get to watch a former mercenary discover how much she likes seeing the same faces every morning. Choose this one when your ideal evening involves a pastry and a manageable amount of peril.
Find Legends & Lattes on Amazon
4. Traveling fortune teller — The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
Your first assignment. Tell the little fortunes people can afford to hear.
Tao travels from village to village offering modest predictions. She has good reason to keep her work small, but the people she meets on the road draw her into a search for a missing child. The scale of her magic makes this an especially good cozy pick. A small piece of knowledge can matter enormously to the person receiving it, and a little help can change what Tao expects from strangers.
Find The Teller of Small Fortunes on Amazon
5. Witchcraft tutor — The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
Your first assignment. Teach three young witches how to use their powers discreetly.
Mika Moon is used to keeping her magic private. A request to teach three girls at Nowhere House gives her a chance to pass on what she knows and spend time with people who understand why secrecy can be exhausting. The fun of the premise is that Mika takes a job teaching magic and ends up reconsidering the rules she lives by. Pick it for a warm household story with a prominent romance.
Find The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches on Amazon
6. Magical orphanage inspector — The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Your first assignment. Inspect a home whose residents include the Antichrist.
Caseworker Linus Baker travels to an island orphanage to assess the children and the man who looks after them. The job sounds absurd on paper, which is precisely where Linus feels most comfortable. The farther he gets into the assignment, the harder it becomes to fit real children into the categories his agency uses. Choose it for found family and the quieter satisfaction of watching someone revise a judgment.
Find The House in the Cerulean Sea on Amazon
7. Investigator’s assistant — The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Your first assignment. Remember everything about the room where a tree grew out of a man.
Dinios Kol has been altered to remember what he observes with extraordinary precision. Working for investigator Ana Dolabra, he brings back details she can assemble into an explanation. Their partnership gives the book its rhythm. Din can retain the evidence, while Ana can spot the detail that changes its meaning. Start here for a fantasy mystery where the magic shapes both the crime and the method used to solve it. Continue with our Shadow of the Leviathan series coverage.
Find The Tainted Cup on Amazon
8. Witness for the dead — The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
Your first assignment. Find out what a dead person can still tell you.
Thara Celehar can sometimes learn things from the recently deceased, a gift he uses in service to the people of Amalo. One case takes him into the world of the city’s opera. The draw is the way Addison treats the work as a public responsibility. Celehar has to listen carefully, follow up on incomplete information, and take people seriously when others would prefer to forget them. Choose it for a patient, humane mystery with a melancholy edge.
Find The Witness for the Dead on Amazon
9. Supernatural intelligence officer — The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
Your first assignment. Go to work as a high-ranking official whose life you can’t remember.
Myfanwy Thomas wakes up surrounded by bodies and finds instructions left by her former self. They lead her back to a secret British organization that handles supernatural threats. The notes make for a particularly funny onboarding process, even as she has to work out who might want her dead. Read it if the idea of a paranormal conspiracy gets better the moment someone has to run a meeting about it.
10. Cartographer — The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
Your first assignment. Work out why someone would kill for a cheap road map.
Nell Young finds an unassuming map among her late father’s belongings and discovers that people are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to possess it. The book turns a cartographer’s attention to small discrepancies into a suspense mechanism. A mark most people would overlook can change your understanding of a place. Pick this if you want a modern mystery with a fantastical premise and a trail of family secrets.
Find The Cartographers on Amazon
11. Government liaison to magicians — A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
Your first assignment. Represent the government to a magical society you’ve only just learned exists.
Robin Blyth stumbles into a civil-service post that puts him in touch with England’s hidden magical world. His predecessor’s disappearance gives him an urgent reason to get up to speed, and magician Edwin Courcey becomes his guide. The bureaucratic mistake is a sharp opening for an Edwardian fantasy that treats access to magical knowledge as a form of power. Pick it if you want a mystery with a central queer romance.
Find A Marvellous Light on Amazon
12. Imperial personal secretary — The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard
Your first assignment. Ask the god-emperor if he’d like to take a holiday.
Cliopher Mdang has served the emperor for years when he invites him to visit his home islands. Even extending the invitation crosses a line most people would never approach. The pleasure of this long, reflective book is seeing what years of competent work make possible, and how hard it can still be for two people to talk as friends. Save it for when you want to settle into one character’s working life for a while.
Find The Hands of the Emperor on Amazon
Which job would you apply for? I’d take my chances with the bread wizard’s sourdough before agreeing to Myfanwy Thomas’s first day at the office.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook
Discover more from Books of Brilliance
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
