Falling in Love with Morally Gray Characters

There is a fine line between good and evil and in that space are the morally gray. Those that do bad things for good reasons or, more often, good things for selfish reasons, walk through fictional worlds with an unwavering dedication to getting what they want.

They make the choice that is right for them and never look back.

These characters make us question our morals, actions, and definitions of what is good or bad. Like us, they make difficult choices based on their emotions and desires, which ultimately makes them feel more human. Readers can’t always see themselves as a hero or a villain, but can certainly relate to the idea of choosing the “wrong” option for the right reason. This is why morally gray characters are often some of the most popular characters in fiction.

From classic characters such as Victor Frankenstein or Jay Gatsby to modern morally gray main characters, such as Kat Brekker from Six of Crows or Beth Harmon of The Queen’s Gambit, readers have always fallen in love with these complex characters. Spanning from fantasy to YA to classic and literary novels, here are just a few book featuring morally gray characters to add to your reading list.

No matter your favorite genre or reader type, there is a morally gray character out there that will grab you and pull you right into their story.

New Releases

The Incandescent

by Emily Tesh

A Deadly Education meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy from bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented and chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Hungerstone

by Kat Dunn

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A Rolling Stone 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Year

A compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the queer novella that inspired Dracula.

It's the height of the Industrial Revolution and ten years into Lenore's marriage to steel magnate Henry, their relationship has soured. When Henry's ambitions take them from London to the remote British moorlands to host a hunting party, a shocking carriage accident brings the mysterious Carmilla into their lives. Carmilla, who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night. Carmilla, who stirs up something deep within Lenore. And before long, girls from the local villages fall sick, consumed by a terrible hunger . . .

Love Letters to a Serial Killer

by Tasha Coryell

An aimless young woman starts writing to an accused serial killer while he awaits trial and then, once he's acquitted, decides to move in with him and take the investigation into her own hands in this dark and irresistibly compelling debut thriller.

Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that's on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. It's the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration and rage. The exercise empowers her, and even feels healthy at first.

Until William writes back.

This Monster of Mine

by Shalini Abeysekara

AN INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

She knows the taste of death. He'll stoke her hunger for it.

Sarai doesn't know why someone tried to kill her four years ago, but she does know that her case was closed without justice. Hellbent on vengeance, she returns to the scene of the crime as a Petitor, a prosecutor who can magically detect lies, and is assigned to work with Tetrarch Kadra. Ice-cold and perennially sadistic, Kadra is the most vicious of the four judges who rule the land--and the prime suspect in a string of deaths identical to Sarai's attempted murder.

Romantasy

Quicksilver

by Callie Hart

This #1 New York Times bestseller is a highly addicting enemies-to-lovers Romantasy with razor-sharp banter, heart-stopping action, and blistering hot romance.

Do not touch the sword. Do not turn the key. Do not open the gate.

Twenty-four-year-old Saeris Fane is good at keeping secrets. No one knows about the strange powers she possesses, or the fact that she has been picking pockets and stealing from the Undying Queen's reservoirs for as long as she can remember. In the land of the unforgiving desert, there isn't much a girl wouldn't do for a glass of water. But a secret is like a knot. Sooner or later, it is bound to come undone.

A Court of Thorns and Roses

by Sarah J Maas

The sexy, action-packed first book in the #1 bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses series from global phenomenon Sarah J. Maas.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he's not a beast all the time.

Fourth Wing

by Rebecca Yarros

A #1 New York Times bestseller - TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general―also known as her tough-as-talons mother―has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don't bond to "fragile" humans. They incinerate them.

Literary Fiction

Yellowface

by R F Kuang

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

"Hard to put down, harder to forget." -- Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences... Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American--in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

The Queen's Gambit

by Walter Tevis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now a highly acclaimed, award-winning Netflix series.

Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she's competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.

Classics

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

'I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.' A summer evening's ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine's room, and a runaway imagination -- fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life -- conspired to produce for Mary Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, "Frankenstein." Written in 1816 when she was only 19, Mary Shelley's novel of 'The Modern Prometheus' chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, "Frankenstein" remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

The Great Gatsby: And Stories from All the Sad Young Men (Centennial Edition)

by F Scott Fitzgerald - Min Jin Lee - Philip McGowan - Philip McGowan - Jennifer Buehler

For the centennial of its publication, a new edition of one of the most iconic of American novels, featuring an introduction by Min Jin Lee, the New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko, and, special to this edition, four of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories about wealth and class from his collection All the Sad Young Men

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

A Penguin Classic

Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, where the party never seems to end, one thing will always be out of reach: the married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby's just across the bay. A brilliant evocation of the Roaring Twenties and a satire of a postwar America obsessed with wealth and status, The Great Gatsby is a novel whose power remains undiminished after a century.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar - Max Gladstone

* HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA * NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA *

From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them.

Godkiller

by Hannah Kaner

INSTANT #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Enter a land of gods and monsters, soldiers and mercenaries, secrets and wishes--the explosive #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut in a new trilogy for fans of The Witcher and Gideon the Ninth

Gods are forbidden in the kingdom of Middren. Formed by human desires and fed by their worship, there are countless gods in the world--but after a great war, the new king outlawed them and now pays "godkillers" to destroy any who try to rise from the shadows.

As a child, Kissen saw her family murdered by a fire god. Now, she makes a living killing them and enjoys it. But all this changes when Kissen is tasked with helping a young noble girl with a god problem. The child's soul is bonded to a tiny god of white lies, and Kissen can't kill it without ending the girl's life too.

Blood of Hercules

by Jasmine Mas

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller!

The overnight viral sensation everyone is talking about, Blood of Hercules, is a sarcastically funny, dark fantasy romance reimagining of Hercules from bestselling author Jasmine Mas--now available in paperback with full color character art, bonus content, and embossed lettering.

I'm just a girl. And it turns out, I'm Hercules.

I'm struggling to survive in a Titan infested world where Spartans, immortals from twelve royal families who have god-like powers and obscene wealth, rule over all. A shy-stammering foster child with nothing, I keep my head down, cover my scars, and focus on excelling in school. At least, I try to. Then it happens.

My blood test reveals I'm part of the powerful elite. I'm one of them. A Spartan.

Forced to attend the Spartan War Academy, I undergo the most harrowing test of all time to see if I have what it takes to be an immortal. There's just a few problems. Achilles and Patro are my scary mentors. Kharon, the ferryman of death, and Augustus, the son of war, are my terrifying professors. Also, I'm pretty sure either someone's stalking me everywhere I go, or my sanity's slipping--I have a bad feeling both are true.

YA Morally Gray Characters

Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

See the Grishaverse come to life on screen in the Netflix series, Shadow and Bone!

Meet Kaz Brekker and his crew: Jesper, Inej, Wylan, and the star-crossed Nina and Matthias, on the heist of a lifetime in Six of Crows, from #1 New York Times-bestselling author, Leigh Bardugo.

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first.

Blood Scion

by Deborah Falaye

"Equal parts soaring fantasy, heart-pounding action, and bloody social commentary, Blood Scion is a triumph of a book." --Roseanne A. Brown, New York Times bestselling author of A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

This is what they deserve.

They wanted me to be a monster.

I will be the worst monster they ever created.

Fifteen-year-old Sloane can incinerate an enemy at will--she is a Scion, a descendant of the ancient Orisha gods.

Under the Lucis' brutal rule, her identity means her death if her powers are discovered. But when she is forcibly conscripted into the Lucis army on her fifteenth birthday, Sloane sees a new opportunity: to overcome the bloody challenges of Lucis training, and destroy them from within.

Only a Monster

by Vanessa Len

The sweeping romance of Passenger meets the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song in this stunning contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, where the line between monster and hero is razor thin.

Don't forget the rule. No one can know what you are. What we are. You must never tell anyone about monsters.

Joan has just learned the truth: her family are monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers.

And the cute boy at work isn't just a boy: he's a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to destroy her family.

To save herself and her family, Joan will have to do what she fears most: embrace her own monstrousness. Because in this story...she is not the hero.

Dive deep into the world of Only a Monster: hidden worlds dwell in the shadows, beautiful monsters with untold powers walk among humans, and secrets are the most powerful weapon of all.

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