This year’s Wyrd & Wonder theme is Moon, and/or transformation, in honour of May having two full moons in 2026. So naturally, that got me thinking about fantasy settings with multiple moons!

More-than-one-moon is a well-established trope that I have a definite soft spot for – as I think many fantasy fans do. Most of the time, the physics of it all are handwaved – we rarely see stories that explore what multiple moons would do to the tides or whatnot. But I actually love that – to me it makes it more obviously magical, that it’s not (usually) at all realistic. It’s a visual, inarguable signal that magic is here, in a way that few other tropes manage as powerfully. Even the presence of dragons doesn’t mean a story isn’t set in our world, but moons plural vehemently does. More-than-one-moon is a quiet, but also wonderfully loud announcement that this isn’t Kansas any more.

Something about that strikes me as so beautiful.

There’s nothing tying these books together except that they’re Fantasy, I love them, and their settings have more than one moon!

(And since there are 13 months in a lunar year, I decided it would be fun to feature 13 books/series!)

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (The Tithenai Chronicles, #1) by Foz Meadows
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Goodreads

“Stolen me? As soon to say a caged bird can be stolen by the sky.”

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different plans: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead.

Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock.

With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love―as both will learn―is quite another.

Byzantine politics, lush sexual energy, and a queer love story that is by turns sweet and sultry, Foz Meadows' A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is an exploration of gender, identity, and self-worth. It is a book that will live in your heart long after you turn the last page.

Like most of the books on this list, the multiple moons of the Tithenai Chronicles don’t play a large part in the story at all, but they’re there! There’s also a little bit of worldbuilding attached to them; what especially pleased me is that the two cultures we see over the course of the books have different worldbuilding lore about the moons!

I think I should mention that Meadows’ other fantasy duology, the Manifold Worlds, is also set in a world with two moons (and also has some rather lovely lore about those moons). If you are a Fantasy Armchair Anthropologist like myself and adore complex, unique worldbuilding, you’ve got to try Manifold Worlds out, because the worldbuilding is dense and intricate and fantastic!

Two Dark Moons (Sãoni Cycle, #1) by Avi Silver
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, YA
Representation: Aromantic pansexual MC, nonbinary love interest, F/NB
Goodreads

Sohmeng Par is sick of being treated like a child. Ever since a tragic accident brought her mountain community’s coming-of-age ritual to a halt, she’s caused nothing but trouble in her impatience to become an adult. But when she finally has the chance to prove herself, she’s thrown from her life in the mountains and into the terror of the jungle below.

Cornered by a colony of reptilian predators known as the sãoni, Sohmeng is rescued by Hei, an eccentric exile with no shortage of secrets. As likely to bite Sohmeng as they are to cook her breakfast, this stranger and their family of lizards are like nothing she’s ever seen before. If she wants to survive, she must find a way to adapt to the vibrant, deadly world of the rainforest and the creatures that inhabit it—including Hei themself. But Sohmeng has secrets of her own, and sharing them could mean losing everything a second time.

In the Sãoni Cycle, the two moons are a vital part of the worldbuilding: your personality is (believed to be) determined by the aspects of the moons when you were born. Your gender, pronouns, and community role are all defined by this – which of course means that the way other people view you and treat you are defined by it as well.

The trilogy follows a character who was raised under a false moon aspect – because the one she was born under would have seen her put to death as an infant.

My (mini-)review of Two Dark Moons

Chantverse by Alexandra Rownland

Most of Alexandra Rowland’s books take place in their Chantverse, and while it’s a blink-and-miss-it detail in most of the stories, the Chantverse does have more than one moon!

Do not ask me to pick a favourite from the Chantverse: all the books are incredibly different from each other, and thus each one can be my favourite depending on my mood. There’s Choir of Lies, which is about the Dutch tulip mania and also the philosophy of story-telling with an unreliable narrator; A Taste of Gold and Iron, which is the most decadent example of queer yearning I’ve ever seen, and which will teach you all about coinage and why it matters; The Lights of Ystrac’s Wood might be short but it is mighty, stopping your heart in your throat with the majesty of meeting your god; Running With the Wind is pirates, a plot-relevant baking competition, and the philosophy of comedy; Yield Under Great Persuasion is cosy fantasy that is INTENSE; and Some By Virtue Fall is hilarious, with theatre shenanigans in a kind of matriarchal Elizabethan setting! WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?

My review of A Taste of Gold and Iron
My review of Running Close to the Wind

Theory (The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming #1) by Sienna Tristen
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: POC cast, asexual MC, secondary gay character
Goodreads

WINNER OF THE 2019 READERVIEWS AWARD FOR FANTASY!WINNER OF THE 2019 IPPY AWARD FOR FANTASY!

“Life is transformation. You change or you die.”

Ashamed of his past and overwhelmed by his future, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani feels too small for his own name. After a graceless exit from his homeland in the Acharrioni desert, his anxiety has sabotaged every attempt at redemption. Asides from a fiery devotion to his godling, the one piece of home he brought with him, he has nothing.

That is, until he meets Reilin. Beguiling, bewildering Reilin, who whisks Ronoah up into a cross-continental pilgrimage to the most sacred place on the planet. The people they encounter on the way—children of the sea, a priestess and her band of storytellers, the lonely ghosts of monsters—are grim and whimsical in equal measure. Each has their part to play in rewriting Ronoah’s personal narrative.

One part fantasy travelogue, one part emotional underworld journey, The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming is a sumptuous, slow-burning story about stories and the way they shape our lives.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming series is set in a world with multiple moons, because Tristen’s worldbuilding goes hard; over the course of the book we see, what, a half-dozen different cultures? All of them beautifully distinct and wonderfully detailed. It makes perfect sense that Tristen’s worldbuilding would reach into the sky too!

My review of book one, Theory
My review of book two, Practice

The Dragon’s Legacy (The Dragon's Legacy #1) by Deborah A. Wolf
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: Characters of Colour, (one) matriarchal culture
Goodreads

The last Aturan King is dying, and as his strength fades so does his hold on sa and ka. Control of this power is a deadly lure; the Emperor stirs in his Forbidden City to the East, while deep in the Seared Lands, the whispering voices of Eth bring secret death. Eight men and women take their first steps along the paths to war, barely realizing that their world will soon face a much greater threat; at the heart of the world, the Dragon stirs in her sleep. A warrior would become Queen, a Queen would become a monster, and a young boy plays his bird-skull flute to keep the shadows of death at bay.

Honestly, there being multiple moons in this setting is the LEAST of the weirdness – the Sun is a DRAGON, and the Earth? ANOTHER DRAGON. The latter has to be kept asleep by constant human magic, lest she wake up, break the crust of the planet like an egg, and go hang out with her Sun-husband. As you can imagine, that’s all rather more urgent than there being more than one moon in the sky!

My review of Dragon’s Legacy

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1) by Scott Lynch
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads

An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges death and slavery, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentleman Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game—or die trying.

I wonder how many fans of this series have never noticed the three moons? I didn’t catch it, for the longest time; Lynch doesn’t make a big deal of them at all (because why would his characters, having grown up with more than one moon?) I remain Very Annoyed that they thus only put ONE moon on the new cover of Lies of Locke Lamora. FALSE ADVERTISING, PUBLISHERS!

The Grass King's Concubine by Kari Sperring
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads

Kari Sperring's first novel was a finalist for the Crawford Award, a Tiptree Award Honor Book, a LOCUS Recommended First Novel, and the winner of the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. Now she returns to the same amazing and atmospheric world with an entirely new story set several hundred years after the earth-shaking events of Living With Ghosts .

When a wealthy young woman, obsessed with a childhood vision of a magical Shining Palace, sets out with her true love to search for a legendary land, she discovers the devastated WorldBelow - the realm of the Grass King - and the terrifying Cadre, who take her prisoner, and demand she either restore the king's concubine... or replace her.

One of the reasons the multiple moons in Grass King’s Concubine particularly tickles me, is that over the course of the book, the main character passes from the ‘normal’ world to another realm populated by beings from her peoples’ legends. And it’s the ‘normal’ world that has multiple moons, making it quite strange by our standards!

What can I say, I’m easily amused.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1) by Laini Taylor
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Portal Fantasy, YA
Goodreads

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

I can never decide which set of covers I love best for this trilogy, so ta-da, you get both my faves!

As far as I can remember, the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy is the only one of these recs which uses the multiple moons for the classic ‘proving to the human that they’re now in another world’ moment; despite having passed through an obviously magic door, Karou quite naturally doesn’t immediately assume she’s in another world. But she has to reconcile the fact that she definitely HAS ended up seriously Elsewhere when she looks up to see two moons.

Of course, she has plenty of reasons to not be very shocked by this…

The Helm of Midnight (The Five Penalties, #1) by Marina J. Lostetter
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queernorm world, brown bi/pansexual MC
Goodreads

A legendary serial killer stalks the streets of a fantastical city in The Helm of Midnight, the stunning first novel in a new trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter.

In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power--the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city with a series of gruesome murders.

Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.

It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.

The Five Penalties trilogy is another where there being two moons really is the LEAST strange thing about the worldbuilding! This story takes place in a world where time is taxed from infants, emotions can be removed from a body and set in jewellery, and the skills (and personalities) of great craftspeople can be kept in masks after they die – though you’ve got to be careful using a mask like that, because sometimes they kind of take over the people who try to wear them…

And as weird as the world looks in Helm of Midnight, it’s actually revealed to be EVEN WEIRDER THAN THAT as the trilogy goes on!

My review of The Helm of Midnight
My review of The Dark Hours

Hunting by Andrea K. Höst
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Goodreads

Ash Lenthard doesn’t call herself a vigilante. She’s merely prone to random acts of derring-do, and occasional exhibitions of tomfoolery. Her friends, the Huntsmen, have never stepped over the line while patrolling the streets of Luinhall.

That was before the murder of Ash’s beloved guardian, Genevieve.

Now, Ash Lenthard is out for blood and even when the hunt sends her to the palace, on a collision course with a past identity she would do anything to forget, Ash cannot, will not, back down.

Hunting is a slightly unusual example for a Moon feature, because while it does have two moons, the plot actually revolves around there being multiple Sun gods (only one actual Sun, to be clear) – the original one having been overthrown long ago, but perhaps trying to make a comeback…

My (mini-)review of Hunting

Kirith Kirin (Irion/Hormling, #1) by Jim Grimsley
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Goodreads

Kirith Kirin is like no other fantasy that you have ever read. Jim Grimsley has created a fantasy that could have come right from our world where power and greed can tempt, and sometimes conquer, even the most rightist person and where knowing who your friends and enemies are can be very difficult if not impossible. Yet it is not our world. For in Kirith Kirin's world magic is real, immortals walk the land, and people are sometimes the playthings for the dark arts.

The Blue Queen, upon resuming the throne while King Kirith Kirin's eternality is renewed in the Arthen forest, has partnered with a magician of the dark arts. No longer does she need to leave the throne to renew her eternal nature. Swayed by promises of the dark magician, she has claimed the throne forever and is extending her influence to the far corners of the world. Malleable grey clouds, sidewinding wind, and intelligent lightning bolts made the trip across the vast Girdle nearly impossible.

Out of nowhere, the Blue Queen's Patrols made haste to kill the boy and the warrior before they could safely reach the deep forest of Arthen. Riding upon two magnificent stallions, one a royal Prince out of Queen Mnemarra, Jessex and his uncle Sivisal reached Arthen despite a deadly storm that reeked of magic. Thus begins Jessex's new life as he enters Arthen and moves into the royal court of Kirith Kirin.

Sprawling old-school Epic Fantasy, but make it gay! Kirith Kirin is beautiful in a way that feels very classic, though when you stop to think about it, it’s actually very revolutionary – and the M/M pairing at the heart of it isn’t why. I admit the romance made me a bit uncomfortable – the main character is 15, I think, when he gets with the eponymous Kirith Kirin, who is centuries older. But if you can ignore that, this is a rich, gorgeous fantasy that I wish so many more people knew about!

(Also, although it’s technically a trilogy, Kirith Kirin stands alone perfectly, and after this book the series goes sci fi, so a lot of people don’t keep reading and it’s fine!)

Cold Iron (Masters & Mages, #1) by Miles Cameron
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Representation: MC belongs to fictional ostracized minority, many brown characters
Goodreads

Aranthur is a student. He showed a little magical talent, is studying at the local academy, and is nothing particularly special. Others are smarter. Others are more talented. Others are quicker to pick up techniques. But none of them are with him when he breaks his journey home for the holidays in an inn. None of them step in to help when a young woman is thrown off a passing stage coach into the deep snow at the side of the road. And none of them are drawn into a fight to protect her.

One of the others might have realised she was manipulating him all along . . .

A powerful story about beginnings, coming of age, and the way choosing to take one step towards violence can lead to a slippery and dangerous slope, this is an accomplished fantasy series driven by strong characters and fast-paced action.

I kind of love it when we don’t immediately realise that a fantasy setting has multiple moons – because it’s such a normal thing for the characters living in that world that they don’t mention it to us for ages. The Master & Mages trilogy is one such; we don’t realise there’s two moons until book two, when it becomes a pretty big deal indeed, for a while. One of the moons is in peril of disappearing into a crack in the sky – and that’s only a tiny part of the plot…

The Killing Moon (Dreamblood, #1) by N.K. Jemisin
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Ancient Egyptian-inspired setting and cast, asexual-coded MC, gay-coded MC
Goodreads

THE CITY BURNED BENEATH THE DREAMING MOON

In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and among the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers - the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe...and kill those judged corrupt.

But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh's great temple, the Gatherer Ehiru must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering innocent dreamers in the goddess's name, and Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill - or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

I think Jemisin has said this duology were the first books she wrote, though the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy was published before it? Either way, I couldn’t leave it off the list! The story takes place in a land heavily inspired by ancient Egypt, and a whole lot of the worldbuilding is concerned with one of the two moons – Hananja, the larger moon, whose priesthood harvest dreams for use in magical healing…and kill people, in what is sometimes euthanasia, often an execution, and even more often what most readers would consider murder (it varies a bit from kill to kill). The plot gets moving when our characters begin to suspect that someone is using Hananja’s magics – murdering people and destroying their souls – without Her blessing.

The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker Saga, #1) by Kameron Hurley
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself.

In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin.

As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war, a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father’s people or loyalty to her alien Empress.

Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself.

In the end, one world will rise – and many will perish.

Almost every other book/series on this list has just two moons, but the Worldbreaker Saga has four – Para, Tira, Sina, and Oma. (AND two suns, but they’re not nearly as important to the story.) However, they’re not all in the sky at once; they take turns, mostly in predictable cycles – except for Oma, which can appear unexpectedly (this is not a good thing).

This is all extremely plot-relevant, because each mage draws their power from one of the moons. When Para is in ascendance, so are the para-jista, mages who use its power; when Tira’s in the sky, it’s the tira-jista, and so on. The different kinds of jista have very different powers, and since the cycles can mean one moon is in ascendance for years or even decades at a time, this shapes how a civilisation evolves, if they have one power or another to draw on and use.

And actually, because this trilogy deals with multiple dimensions – each world being a kind of alternate reality to the others – really there’s at least TWELVE moons, since each world has its own four…!

What are some of YOUR favourite books with multiple moons???

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