I come here to recommend The Sharing Knife Series by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s a four book stand alone series with a female protagonist. There are some topics you usually don’t see in fantasy (miscarriage, knitting socks, others) but it’s not gratuitous, and some dark things (knives made from human femurs, horrible villains that can only be killed by same) but it worked for me. There’s also a male romantic lead but mostly it’s from the woman’s viewpoint. The lead is actually a pretty traditional woman in that her long term priorities are a farm, family, and children but she’s a tough cookie and deals with all manner of things on her way to that goal.
The books are:
Beguilement
Legacy
Passage
Horizon
No dragons or princesses, but she might enjoy it anyway.
For dragons I recommend The Harper Hall Triology of the Pern series by Anne MacCaffrey. That’s Dragonsong
Dragonsinger
Dragondrums
Although they’re not “adult” or particularly gritty – they were written as YA novels – she might enjoy Patricia C. Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons and its sequels. The heroine, Cimorene, is a princess in a fairytale land and, after becoming fed up with all this entails, runs away. She meets some dragons and learns that (fortunately for her) dragons aren’t really interested in eating princesses, but having a princess around is a status symbol for them. Cimorene volunteers to stay with one of the dragons and become a sort of Girl Friday. Soon afterward the King of the Dragons dies under suspicious circumstances, and the dragons begin the process of choosing a new king. The local wizards also seem to be up to something. There’s some fairly lighthearted political intrigue/mystery, with Cimorene and her new friends ultimately saving the day.
Thanks for all the replies so far. Lots of authors to investigate.
One request though, it would help a ton of you shared a short synopsis of the subject matter and the books’ tone when recommending. Is going to be hard to narrow it down.
Since you’re willing to define “fantasy” in a very broad sense, maybe Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. The main character, a woman, travels through time (that’s the fantasy). The rest is historical fiction/romance. It’s a great big book, great for single-volume travel reading.
I have a sick addiction to Mercedes Lackey’s 500 Kingdoms series. It’s fractured fairytales mixed with romance. The first book Fairy Godmother tells the tale of a 21 year old abused stepdaughter cruelly forced to work as an indentured servant to her stepmother and stepsisters. In this world, there exists something called the Tradition that attempts to force people’s lives along predetermined story routes, but because the prince of her country was 2 when she was 16, it couldn’t give her the Cinderella story but because she is the locus of all this power from the tradition, she draws the attention of the local Fairy Godmother, who rescues her and teaches her how to turn her bad timing into magical power. Then there’s a whole other plot with a prince who needs to learn how not to be so arrogant and snobby and an evil katchei (sp?).
Or, if the Regency England sort of period is intriguing, she has a series similar in style called the Elemental Masters. I think the first one is called Gates of Sleep but I don’t remember much about it except that the main character has water-associated abilities and she is enthralled somehow by an evil woman who uses the deaths of the women in her factories to feed her black magic. The one that I liked best was Phoenix and Ashes, which is also sort of Cinderella-ish. The evil stepmother knows magic and she used it along with Cinderella’s finger to put a geas on her not to ever leave the house. And then the main character, with the help of tarot card visions learns how to unlock her innate power and stop her stepmother and save the day.
I really like Mercedes Lackey because the books generally are quite fun, quite breezy and take no effort or time to read which I think is great for cartrips and the like.
A number of Ursula K. Le Guin’s books YA novels are loosely fantasy–they’re anthropological rather than technological “what ifs,” sometimes with something like a psychic power thrown in. Lots of strong female leads.
Kushiel’s Dart isn’t for everyone, and it has a slow start of a few hundred pages.
All my Lois Bujold suggestions have already been taken, but here’s some synopsis for them:
Spirit Ring is set in a quasi-historical 16th century Italy, except that magic is a real thing. Fiametta is the daughter of a prominent enchanter, but despite showing an aptitude for her father’s work, is prevented by her gender from pursuing it. Things change when, during a banquet, the Duke is usurped and Fiametta’s father is killed. The rest of the story concerns Fiametta’s attempts to help overthrow the usurper, Lord Ferrante, before his pet wizard can bind Fiametta’s father’s soul into the titular spirit ring, a powerful (and very illegal) magical item. Crowning Moment of Awesome: “I am not bound.”
Paladin of Souls is the sequel to Curse of Chalion, and is set in a fantasy world of that name. The first book describes how a recently released galley slave and former prisoner of war comes to Chalion, and helps unravel the curse that has been hanging over the ruling family for generations. Paladin of Souls takes place afterwards, and while it refers to events of the previous book, its plot is entirely self-contained, and can be read on its own.
The main character, Ista, is mother to the queen. A minor character in the previous book, whose inability to save her children from her husband’s family curse had somewhat eroded her sanity, in Paladin of Souls she’s much recovered, but chafes at still being treated like a child. She escapes from her day to day life by convincing her keepers to let her go on a pilgrimage, only to find herself and her companions standing directly in the path of an army of demon-ridden heretics, and one of the Gods has decided that it’s her job to stop them. I like this book particularly because it’s a high fantasy novel whose protagonist is a middle aged woman, which is pretty rare. Crowning Moment of Awesome: “I am the Mouth of Hell.”
I’ve picked that up as a recommended guilty read after three of my friends recommended it as one of their guilty read return to series. I’m halfway through the first one, and there is so much sex that I’m sore reading it. And a sort of constant “again?”
The Mistborn Trilogy by Branden Sanderson has a female protagonist. She suffers a bit from Mary Sue-ism, but the world has a creative and enjoyable magic system, and the whole set-up of the story is that the Big Bad ended up winning long ago, and this is what society looks like now. Nothing too deep, but quite an enjoyable read (first one is the best).
Most of my suggestions already got suggested, so I’ll second them first and offer tone info.
Dealing With Dragons: funny, silly, very short, lots of witty comebacks, very ‘woman needs man like a fish needs a bicycle’ attitude (but not preachy). If she likes it, there are like 6 more, all decent, although a bit repetitive after a while.
The 500 Kingdoms: very silly. Fractured fairy tales, calls out/lampshades/lampoons a lot of ‘fantasy stereotypes’ like horses with manes and tails that drag the ground, or princes who magically show up at the exact right moment, or fairy godmother deus ex machina. There are ‘sequels’ set in the same universe, but the cast of characters changes in each book, as do the individual fairy tales which are twisted.
Daughter of the Empire: so amazing. Serious stuff, politics, the acquisition and use of power, how to survive in a man’s world, the difference between having ideals and being realistic. Really amazing. Trilogy, if she doesn’t like the first one within a few chapters, it won’t be changing.
And now for my suggestion:
The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger. In an alternate past, the realm of Britain lives on with humans in an uneasy truce with vampires and werewolves. These powerful creatures are superior to all humans, except a particular type, those born without souls. Alexa is one of these. She’s also freakishly tall, not married, and half-Italian. This series covers how she overcomes her disadvantages, finds love, and joins a paramilitary organization devoted to protecting the Realm from supernatural threats.
It is so damn funny. It’s like if Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was actually good. I love these, I love all the characters, and there is a related ‘prequel’ with younger girls in a ‘finishing school’ (with finishing having a more deadly connotation than usual) located in a catapillar-shaped dirigible. Ridiculously funny, not serious at all, decent amount of sex in the adult series.
Take her to Discworld. There’s the Tiffany Aching series, the Witches series, and of the Death series, there’s “Soul Music”, “Hogfather”, and “Thief of Time.”
The princess and dragon part is hard, but I’ll do my best to try to capture some of the big feeling of such stories.
I’ll second or third the Chalion books.
Sisters of the Raven, followed by Circle of the Moon, by Barbara Hambly, has a female main character plus a nearly all-female ensemble. It’s set in a quasi-Arabic desert culture where historically only men had magical powers but, for some reason, the men have lost their power and women have gained it. Epic feel but not leisurely.
The Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews, starting with Magic Bites, is one of the strongest urban fantasy series. Very strong female lead (who is arguably a princess of sorts), lots of interesting magic. Not exactly any dragons, but definitely supernatural creatures.
Kristen Britain’s series starting with Green Rider has a strong female lead, lots of horses and magic and evil conspiracies.
Chalice by Robin McKinley, along with a lot of other McKinley, has a fairy-tale feel.
Graceling and its sequels by Kristin Cashore is about a woman who has a magical power that makes her nearly invincible in a fight. Cashore writes these books with a folklore-y feel.
The Girl of Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson is YA but it has a strong, interesting heroine who starts as a princess, then is married to a king she’s never met. She is a really outstanding character.
Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn is about a girl who falls in love with a prince during her times spent at court. I loved this book. It’s probably the least challenging thing I’m listing. Just an easy, comfortable read.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Mordant’s Need books by Stephen Donaldson, starting with The Mirror of Her Dreams has a frustrating, annoying, yet eventually satisfying main character, for me. Lots of people hate these books, and I totally get why. Donaldson’s writing is, frankly, irritating. This might fall into the “too slow” category, too, though it does get pretty busy eventually!
The NK Jemisin books suggested above are really neat, quite unusual, and something I highly recommend… but I’m not sure they quite fit what you are looking for right now.
A different, possibly unacceptable, recommendation by China Mieville: The Scar. Possibly unacceptable because Mieville’s writing can start off slow, and also because the main character, IIRC, doesn’t seem especially strong in the beginning (although by the end she reveals a formidable strength of character–not a bloody heroine but a heroine nonetheless). However, I know folks who think it’s Mieville’s best work. Synopsis: a woman with linguistics traing goes on an expedition across the boundless ocean and encounters all sorts of strange and horrific and beautiful creatures and cultures along the way. It’s firmly in the New Weird movement; I love it, but some others hate it. The book won some awards, though, so take that for what it’s worth.
One I just finished might qualify, too: Red Country. It’s a bit of Deadwood, a bit of Unforgiven, a bit of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s extremely low-magic. A woman with an outlaw history, trying to make her living as a farmer, comes home to discover her old farmhand murdered and her much-younger brother and sister (six and nine) kidnapped. She and her hulking, docile stepfather go looking. It’s brutal, brutally funny, and thoughtful; quite worth the read, IMO.
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman is set in the kingdom of Goredd and follows the sixteen-year-old Seraphina, a court musician. She’s drawn into a murder mystery when the Crown Prince of Goredd, Rufus, is found decapitated in a manner that insinuates that he was murdered by dragons. The murder occurs on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the signing of a treaty that ended the war between humans and dragons. Dragons can take human form but find human emotions baffling, which only lends to the continuing distrust and hatred between them and humans.
And there’s The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde. The story begins with 15-year-old Jennifer Strange, who is filling in for the missing manager, Kazam, for an employment agency for magicians. There are prophecies that the last dragon will soon die, meaning that the dragon’s territory is up for grabs. Trying to find the truth of the matter, she finds the official Dragonslayer and is pushed into becoming his apprentice. And from there it gets worse.
I haven’t read them, but his Thursday Next series comes highly recommended as well.
I’d also recommend Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, starting with Moon Called. No princesses or a hint of a dragon in this one I’m afraid. It’s an urban fantasy sans the trashy romance common in the genre. Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy’s next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy’s connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water.
I’d also like second Daughter of the Empire and Tiffany Aching mentioned above. They are some of my very favorite books.
Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch series features a princess forced to flee her castle and homeland after a palace coup in the King’s absence, and has to toughen up to retake her kingdom.
In the modern “urban fantasy” genre, I recommend Kat Richardson’s Greywalker series.