15 Books Like Harry Potter

Just like Harry was thrust into the wizarding world, so too is Peter Grant, a young police officer looking for action. Given desk duties, however, he’s not seeing much of it until he obtains information about a murder from an eyewitness – who happens to be dead. This garners him the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, whose sole role on the force is to investigate crimes of a supernatural nature.

As far as books like Harry Potter go, this is definitely one for adults. Eugenie Markham is a fiercely independent modern woman – not to mention a powerful shaman who pays the rent by banishing otherworldly denizens back to their realm. But when she takes on a case of a missing teen that puts her right at the centre of a dark prophecy, everything she thought she knew about her world will turn upside down.

If you want to know what to read after Harry Potter, let this award-winner be top of your list. Think MI5 but with magic. The Secret Service but supernatural. Myfanwy Thomas is a Rook – a member of a group tasked with battling Britain’s supernatural forces on the sly. Unfortunately, she doesn’t actually remember any of this. After waking up with no memory in a London park, she’s piecing it together by following clues left for her by her former self, all while dodging agents who want her dead.

Harry and friends had Diagon Alley, and, in Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman creates a rich world where magic is hidden beneath London’s cobblestone streets. When Richard Mayhew rushes to help a girl bleeding in the street, he has no idea he’s about to be thrust into ‘London Below’ – a world that is familiar but strange and plays home to the people who have fallen between the cracks.

An elite academy for the magically gifted. A shocking murder. A private investigator who was born without supernatural powers (and doesn’t want them) – and her estranged twin, who got all the magic genes. Ivy Gamble’s talented sister Tabitha is a professor at the school where a faculty member has died a gruesome death, and when Ivy is hired to investigate, she begins to lose herself in the magic of the mystery.

Just as Harry finds out he’s a wizard at 11, Daine learns about her gifts when she’s just 13. She’s always had a connection with animals, but after taking on a role as a horse handler for the queen, Daine soon realises this is more than a ‘knack’. Master mage Numair notices, too, and becomes her mentor, teaching Daine how to use her powers – and how to protect the people she loves from the evil immortal creatures returning to the world.

Think Harry Potter meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you’ll have a good idea of what this book – the first in the Mortal Instruments series – is all about. Like Harry Potter, Clary was brought up in an ordinary world until one night, she witnesses three teens commit a murder… and the body disappears into thin air. These are the Shadowhunters and that corpse? Well, that was a demon…

Another of our favourite books similar to Harry Potter, The Magician’s Guild follows Sonea, a young girl from the slums who finds out – quite by accident – that she has magical potential beyond anything anyone has ever seen. She’s powerful but lacks control, and if she can’t be found – and trained – her raw ability might not just destroy Sonea but the entire city.

Ever wondered what Harry and his friends would’ve gotten up to at university? Meet Alex, a Los Angeles native who’s offered the unexpected chance to attend Yale – but there’s a catch. Her benefactors want Alex to keep an eye on the elite uni’s secret societies – where there’s a lot more occult action going on than she could’ve ever imagined.

If your favourite bit of JK Rowling’s series was Ron and Hermione’s hook-up, this is what to read after Harry Potter! Maggie’s mum has deserted her, and the only way to get her back is to win the Halfmoon Hunt. But Maggie needs an alchemist if she wants to join the competition. Enter charismatic but troubled Wes, who’s trained as an alchemist but can’t seem to stop getting fired from his apprenticeships.

These books, like Harry Potter, have become New York Times bestsellers. A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night and The Book of Life follow Diana Bishop – a young scholar who wants nothing to do with her witchy heritage. But when a horde of daemons, witches and vampires descend, she might not have a choice…

Beginning with Witchmark, this book series like Harry Potter introduces Miles Singer – who is marked for magic the day he’s born but, in an effort to escape his fate, fakes his own death after returning from the war. He reinvents himself as a doctor at Kingston’s veterans’ hospital but must trade in his anonymity for justice when a fatally poisoned patient is brought in.

If we met Harry when he was 18 and heading to uni, we might’ve gotten something along the lines of The Magicians trilogy – with all the supernatural academia vibes of Hogwarts plus a much more sinister side. Quentin Coldwater's life is turned upside down when he arrives at his university entrance interview to find his interviewer dead and an envelope with his name sitting on the desk. It’s an invitation to attend Brakebills – a secret sorcerers’ university – and a path to the magical land of Fillory.

Any Harry Potter fan will recognise the name Nicholas Flamel. In this series, author Michael Scott has given the alchemist a different treatment. The immortal Nicholas Flamel goes by Nick Fleming these days and tasks 15-year-old twins Sophie and Josh with retrieving The Book of Abraham the Mage – the only thing keeping him alive 700 or so years after his birth – when it is stolen.

With eight titles to keep you going, this book series – like Harry Potter – is a crowd-pleaser. Coming in at #46 on Dymocks’ 2022 Top 101 list, Throne of Glass follows elite teen assassin Celaena Sardothien from the slave mines of Endovier to her reluctant place by the side of a tyrannical king, intent on using ancient evil magic to enslave the world.