9 Fantasy Books for 15 Year Olds Set in Celtic Nations

This post was last updated on April 1st, 2025 at 08:46 pm

These nine fantasy books for 15-year-olds set in Celtic nations are beckoning the reader with magic, folklore, witchy characters, and fiery heroes. Get ready to lose yourself in these enchanting stories in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. 

What are the best books for 15-year-olds? If you like Celtic fantasy, the YA fantasy novels below are some of the best! You’ll be happy to know that not only did I find some great reads set in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but I also found two set in Cornwall. As for the Isle of Man and Brittany, I’ll have to get back to you on young adult novels set in those places. While fine authors indeed have written stories that take place there, books of the chosen genre of this post are still eluding me… for now!  

Secondly, what is considered Celtic? “Celtic” can mean a few things depending on the context. It refers to people who share ancestry with the Celts of ancient Europe. Although the Celts were a collection of independent and diverse tribal societies, they held in common a similar culture, religious beliefs, and language. What we think of as Celtic culture began in Europe around 1,200 BC. 

Modern Celts (the Irish, Scottish, Manx, Cornish, Bretons, and Welsh) have their own Celtic cultures that have evolved over thousands of years. They also each speak a language derived from Insular Celtic. Insular Celtic was the Celtic language spoken on the island of Great Britain after the Celts arrived here around 1,000 BC. Today, there are six regions that we call the Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man.

This post is about fantasy books for 15-year-olds set in Celtic nations. 

Fantasy Books for 15-Year-Olds

Books Set in Ireland

Daughter of the Forest (The Sevenwaters Series Book 1) by Juliet Marillier

Lord Colum of Sevenwaters considers himself lucky to have six sons. There’s Liam, who’s a natural leader. Diarmid has a passion for adventure. The twins Cormack and Conor each have their own unique calling. There’s Finbar, the rebellious one, who’s suffering growing old before his time by his gift of the Sight. Finally, there’s the young, compassionate Padriac.

However, it’s Sorcha, Lord Colum’s seventh child and only daughter, who has a unique destiny to defend her family. She must protect her land from the Britons and a belligerent clan called the Northwoods. Someone has bewitched her father, and a dreadful spell curses her brothers. Sorcha is the only one who can lift it.

Sorcha leaves the only place of safety she’s ever known to give her brothers their lives back. She boldly embarks on a journey beset with loss, terror, and pain. When enemy forces kidnap her and whisk her away to a foreign land, it seems there’s no solution to breaking the spell that threatens to ruin all that this young woman loves. Still, Sorcha knows that magic has no real boundaries, so she’ll have to choose between her familiar life and a love that only happens once in a lifetime.

Daughter of the Forest is an excellent choice if you’re looking for romance novel fantasy books for 15-year-olds. It’s got a strong romantic thread running through it.

Savage Her Reply by Deirdre Sullivan (Author) and Karen Vaughan (Illustrator)

Savage Her Reply is known for being a dark, feminist reimagining of The Children of Lir. In this retelling, Sullivan lets the story unfold in her characteristic hypnotic prose. If you haven’t heard of it until now, The Children of Lir is a favorite Irish fairytale. In the tale, a witch named Aife marries Lir. Lir is a king who already has four children from a previous marriage. However, Aife is bitterly jealous of Lir’s affection for his children. To solve this, she turns the kids into swans for 900 years. 

Sullivan gives us the story through Aife’s voice and viewpoint in her retelling. This unusual perspective is what makes Savage Her Reply so unsettling, mysterious, and bold. However, it’s also quite subtle in exploring the main character’s guilt. People are complex, after all, even if we don’t always agree with their motives. The author’s rich, poetic writing, which we grew accustomed to in her earlier novel Tangleweed and Brine, will captivate readers in Savage Her Reply. This writing style also established Sullivan as the queen of YA novels and won her multiple awards.

Circle of Nine: Beltany (Circle of Nine Series Book 1) by Valerie Biel

“Since I was a little girl, I’ve been labeled a freak in my small town. There’s no blending in when your mom practices an ancient pagan religion, and everyone believes she’s a witch. On my 15th birthday, my secret wish is the same as always—to just be normal. But that’s not what I get. Not even close.” —Brigit Quinn

Brigit is shocked to the core when she learns of her lineage. She’s descended from a Celtic tribe of legend. They were powerful people who guarded the stone circles of Ireland. What’s more, when she reads a spellbound book of her family history, she discovers the magical powers her ancestors possessed. Powers that she may also possess if only she dares reach for them.

When someone evil and dark turns up to take her family’s power, Brigit has to make a choice. She can either fight to keep her heritage and the gifts it brings or reject it for the everyday life she thought she’d always wanted.

This modern coming-of-age fantasy novel is perfect for readers who love stories of magic and the mysteries surrounding the standing stone circles of Ireland.

Fantasy Books for 15-Year-Olds Set in Scotland

The Wise One (Book I of The Scottish Scrolls) by K.T. Englehart

Mckenna’s always had nightmares, but she never thought much of them. However, on her seventeenth birthday, she has a vivid dream of burning at the stake. This nightmare is different. It awakens her dormant abilities and throws her headlong into a world where faeries exist, spirits seek vengeance, and a High Priestess obsessing over a 16th-century prophecy is watching everything Mckenna does.

Because of this, Seán and Andre, her overprotective dads, know they must tell her the truth. They do know the name of her birth mother, and Mckenna’s life didn’t start with being carried by a surrogate mother as they’ve always told her. It turns out that Abigail, Mckenna’s mom, happens to be a type of mystic, and Mckenna is called a Wise One. She doesn’t know what that means, but it doesn’t look good.

With the help of a wren who won’t give up and a newfound friend for company, Mckenna travels to Ireland to find her mother and the answers she needs. During her journey, she learns to use her inborn gifts and how to trust her new insights to the best of her ability. It gets a bit trickier when she meets Cillian. While he’s kind and dedicated to his purpose, he’s more complicated to read than most.

Mckenna’s mother is the only one who can truly stop the ill fate that awaits her and prepare her for what’s coming in. Otherwise, Mckenna fears she may give in to the darkness growing stealthier inside her.

Toward a Secret Sky by Heather Maclean

Maren Hamilton is orphaned at the age of 17. Shortly after, she’s sent to Scotland to live with her grandparents—people she’s never met. Soon, Maren finds herself in possession of an encrypted journal from her dead mother. Not only can she not decipher it, but it makes her and everyone in her vicinity a target. It proves that a secret international organization once employed her parents. Now, the same organization seems intent on recruiting her, too.

As Maren tries to figure out what her mother was trying to tell her before she died, a fatal madness sweeps through the small town, throwing its residents into terror. Maren has to decide what to do. Should she take up her parents’ fight and keep on fighting, or should she stay behind and save those close to her?

An otherworldly mercenary named Gavin comes to her aid. He’s the guy she’s not supposed to fall in love with. There’s also Graham, an aristocrat who’s charming and captivated by her. Maren races against time and travels to Scotland to every conceivable setting. She has to stay ahead of her enemy and find something to cure the madness. And, on her journey, she learns a great truth about love.

Books Set in Wales

The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones

Aderyn, also known as “Ryn,” is a seventeen-year-old Welsh girl who only has two concerns: her family and her family’s graveyard. (I like it already.) Both are in a sorry state. Since their parents passed away, Ryn and her siblings have been doing everything they can to survive. Primarily, this consists of eeking out an existence as gravediggers. They work in Colbren, a remote village in Wales. Each day, they visit the foot of a dangerous and deadly mountain range where the fae used to live. Even worse is that the dead don’t always stay dead, at least not here. 

The locals call the risen corpses “bone houses.” Legend has it that a decades-old curse is causing them to claw their way up from the grave. When an apprentice mapmaker named Ellis comes to the small town, the bone houses attacks go from bad to worse. Is it something in his mysterious past or something worse? How can Ryn and Ellis stop them?

Together, they go on an adventure that will take them deep into the perilous mountains. They’ll not only have to face the curse but learn truths about themselves that they don’t want to learn.

The Bone Houses is an intoxicating mixture of horror and fairy tale set in a remote Welsh setting.

Among Others (Hugo Award Winner—Best Novel) by Jo Walton

Morwenna Phelps was raised by a half-insane mam who also fooled around with magic. To cope, Morwenna took refuge in two worlds: the physical one and the spiritual one. She made friends with the spirits she found in the industrial ruins of Wales. She also immersed herself in science fiction novels every chance she got. But when Mori’s mother tried to turn the spirits’ will to dark purposes, Mori had to go against her in a battle of magic that left Mori permanently injured and killed her twin sister.

When Morwenna fled to her father, a man she barely knew, he put her in a boarding school in England. It was a place with almost no magic at all. Alone and with no friends to help her, she tried to use her magic to attract other like-minded teens and form friendships with them. Unfortunately, her enchantments also attracted more undesirable attention… from her mother. Now, she faces a reckoning that she can’t escape.

Fantasy Books for 15-Year-Olds Set in Cornwall

Crow Moon (Greenworld Trilogy Book 1) by Anna McKerrow

Don’t be fooled by the subtitle—most of the story takes place in Cornwall! With a male main character, it’s a good choice for fantasy books for 15-year-olds if the reader is a boy.

At 16, Danny Prentice is almost ready to leave school. It’s not his thing, anyway. He’d rather be talking to girls or going to parties. 

He lives in an unusual place: the Greenworld. It’s an eco-pagan closed community made up of Devon and Cornwall. Here, witches rule, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can join the lawless gangs that live in the rural areas between villages. Their only other choice is to defect to Redworld. It’s a dirty, corrupt place that’s overrun with crime. Only the super-rich are safe, as they can afford to hire private security—security that victimizes the poor. 

Although it might be nice to escape it all, Danny can’t. His mother is the head witch of their village. However, when he puts her in danger by accident, he sets into motion a chain of events that gives him a glimpse of a magical future away from Greenworld.

Teaming up with a lovely young sorceress, Saba, her twin, and the rest of their gang, he thinks that being a witch isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, Roach, the gang’s leader, has other things in mind for Danny’s magical gifts. Can Danny protect Saba and the secret she’s guarding? Or will Roach lure Danny to a dark future that’s too alluring and powerful to resist? 

Deep Water by Lu Hersey

After her mum disappears, Danni goes to live with her dad in a tiny fishing village in Cornwall. Here, the locals treat her like a monster. Gradually, Danni begins learning that not only does the village have a dark and disturbing past, but that she’s not who she thought she was. She’s not what she thought she was. The only chance she has at freeing her family from a terrible curse is to embrace her new magical gift. 

If you’re looking for more Celtic YA fantasy books, check out the following posts:

9 Best Fantasy Books for 13-Year-Olds Set in Wales (Many of these books are also suitable fantasy books for 12-year-olds. When you click the Amazon link, you’ll see that most say “ages 12+”).

7 Otherworldly Celtic Fantasy Books for 14-Year-Olds

This post was all about fantasy books for 15-year-olds set in Celtic nations.