Books like Fourth Wing to read next

Fourth Wing took the romantasy (romance fantasy) world by storm in 2023, climbing up bestseller lists and flooding BookTok. The guide stars Violet Sorrengail, a younger girl who unexpectedly finally ends up competing for a spot at Basgiath Battle School, the place she’ll be educated as a dragon rider. She rises to the event after a lifetime of assuming she’d turn out to be a scribe due to her sharp wit, bitter dedication, and a persistent situation that makes her joints dislocate simply. Throughout these trials, she should additionally face down her household’s best rival, Xaden Riorson, the dangerous boy who simply so occurs to be extraordinarily scorching.

Studying Fourth Wing took me again not simply to a few of my favourite younger grownup romantasies, however to the sensation I had studying these for the primary time. There’s no beating the straightforward thrill of a magic faculty, lethal trials, dragons, and forbidden lovers all wrapped in a fast-paced bundle. (With sufficient smut for grownup readers, to boot.) Fortunately, the guide’s sequel, Iron Throne, is lastly out, so the wait is over. However when you end that, we’ve got another books you may love, sorted by tropes and themes within the Empyrean sequence.

It’s additionally price noting that we wished to go off the overwhelmed path, so we held off from recommending particular titles from Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout, each of whom are style hard-hitters whose sequence additionally ushered on this period of romantasy. For those who haven’t read both creator but, they’re each nice reads for any Fourth Wing fan — with a considerable variety of books to work by, too.

Rivals-to-lovers books

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

There are a variety of enemies-to-lovers books on the market, nevertheless it’s just a little tougher to discover romances which might be truly rivals-to-lovers — individuals in competitors with each other, or in Romeo and Juliet-type household feuds. In Divine Rivals, journalists Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt are vying for a similar columnist place on the Oath Gazette, writing in regards to the warfare waged between gods. However the two of them ultimately meet on the entrance traces as Iris takes a warfare correspondent position so as to discover her lacking brother, a soldier within the warfare, and Roman follows her there.

Although they every have fraught household conditions, fortunately every of them has a pen pal that they will speak to, by a magical typewriter. I ponder who that pen pal is?

Right here’s how I’d examine it: Fourth Wing is for these of us who grew up studying books about dragons, lethal trials, and dangerous boys. Divine Rivals is for the You’ve Obtained Mail film followers who carried Greek mythology tomes round in our backpacks. The sequel can be popping out this 12 months, in only a month, so there’s much more to dig into. —Nicole Clark

The Ultimate Strife by Saara El-Arifi

Picture: Random Home Worlds

In The Ultimate Strife, society is split by the colour of blood — red-blooded Embers have magic-wielding powers, and life within the highest echelons of this society’s social hierarchy. Blue-blooded Dusters inhabit the center class, whereas Ghostings, a servant class who’re maimed at start, have clear blood. However yearly, Ember entrants compete within the Aktibar, a contest that determines who will succeed the empire’s varied Wardens.

The guide was considered one of our picks for finest speculative fiction of 2022. Right here’s what we wrote then: “Sylah was raised as a Duster and trained to overthrow the Embers by winning the Wardens’ annual trials. But when the rebellion was quashed — killing her family, or so she believed — she coped by turning to other vices, hoping to vanish into the background. All of this changes when she sneaks into an Ember princess’s quarters and gets roped right back in.” Come for the trials, keep for the slow-burn sapphic romance. —N. Clark

Deadly, aggressive magic faculty books

The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik

Picture: Del Rey Books

The Scholomance trilogy — A Lethal Schooling, The Final Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves — have been amongst dozens of sequence touted as “Harry Potter, but for adults” as a means of luring in individuals who grew up alongside Harry and have been on the lookout for one thing else that gave them the identical feeling as that sequence. However these three books (which, for these leery of open-ended fantasy sequence, kind a pleasant, full story arc) are a lot darker and extra riveting than many of the Potter-come-latelys — largely as a result of they have been consciously written to deal with a number of the extra evident story questions in Rowling’s work.

Scholomance protagonist El Higgins, like Violet in Fourth Wing, is thrown right into a magical coaching heart the place the scholars face seemingly demise from any variety of instructions, together with their classmates. There aren’t any academics, simply the college itself, which appears to be malevolent and sadistic. The college is crawling with predatory monsters, and to survive them, some college students turn out to be predatory monsters themselves. The one purpose dad and mom enroll their youngsters there’s that the surface world is even worse. It’s a brutal sequence — however one threaded by with heroic hope and wistful idealism, as El begins off friendless, remoted, and defensive, and slowly comes to perceive each why her world is so terrible, and what she will personally do to combat again. —Tasha Robinson

The Poppy Battle by R.F. Kuang

Picture: Harper Voyager

In The Poppy Battle, Rin, an orphan after Nikan’s brutal warfare, manages to ace the Keju, a check that locations the Empire’s brightest into colleges, and is positioned into Nikan’s elite navy faculty, Sinegard. Not solely is Sinegard extremely aggressive and brutal, forcing college students into end-of-year trials to decide their future path, nevertheless it’s additionally an area that’s unwelcome to outsiders — college students are sometimes from rich households which have the cash to spend on elite coaching simply to get into Sinegard, or they’re descendants of empire warlords. Rin is at an obstacle in nearly each space. She doesn’t have the form of coaching different college students have, however she’s additionally a dark-skinned woman from a rural, poor province — and she or he’s focused by different college students due to it.

Rin clashes with a number of of her classmates and is in hassle with the college when she learns that she holds a uncommon, hanging energy often called shamanism. With the assistance of Sinegard’s weirdest professor, she trains to go the year-end trials, all whereas the undercurrent of a nearing warfare hums within the background of all of it — a minimum of, till the sound of that hum turns into too loud to ignore. —N. Carpenter

Bonding-with-dragons books

Temeraire by Naomi Novik

Picture: Del Rey Books

For these wishing Violet Sorrengail’s relationship with dragons was extra private and endearing as a substitute of standoffish and judgmental, Naomi Novik’s nine-book Temeraire sequence is nearly the perfect dragon-bonding sequence on the market. The kickoff novel, His Majesty’s Dragon, in all fairness stable as both stand-alone or an entry into the remainder of the finished sequence’ grand arc.

Set within the period of the Napoleonic Wars, His Majesty’s Dragon opens with British naval captain Will Laurence unwillingly accepting the care and conserving of a hatchling dragon, which he names Temeraire. Captain Laurence is horrorstruck at having to depart the ocean, give up his ship and profession, and turn out to be a full-time aviator in Britain’s disreputable air corps. However every part he learns about aviators and dragons surprises him. There’s loads of political intrigue, plot twists and startling reveals, sophisticated world-building (so many completely different societies around the globe inbuilt radically other ways round dragons), and above all, tactical dragon warfare.

However on a personality foundation, your entire sequence has an especially satisfying emotional arc a couple of stuffy, repressed, duty-driven navy man studying about pleasure and about respect for others. Navy-fiction followers will discover a variety of inventive, detailed ideas about using dragons in fight on this alt-history sequence, however for these of us who simply need to see tough individuals navigate tough however rewarding relationships — whether or not with fantasy creatures or with different individuals — this sequence is an absolute must-read. —TR

The Dragonriders of Pern sequence by Anne McCaffrey and others

Picture: Ballantine Books

For Fourth Wing followers notably engaged by the element about how dragon intercourse lives and dragon rider intercourse lives intertwine, there’s no higher sequence to attain for than the dragon-bonding OG sequence, beginning with 1968’s Dragonflight. Set on an alien world the place human settlers partnered with dragons way back to combat the periodic lethal rains of Thread, an all-consuming spore that wants to be burned to ash in midair by dragon breath so as to guarantee human survival on the planet. A part of that partnership entails such profound telepathic bonds between rider and dragon that it’s vital for the riders to be personally and bodily appropriate when dragon mating time rolls round.

When the sequence first launches, Thread hasn’t fallen in many years, dragon riders are out of favor, and a brand new technology sees the menace as a fable. When the menace returns, humanity has to scramble to rebuild its dragon corps and its self-discipline, and prepare to combat. The unique stand-alone trilogy is an element politics, half private voyage of discovery for a brand new dragon rider, and half going-to-war story. The couple dozen novels and short-story collections that comply with — in later many years written by McCaffrey in collaboration together with her youngsters, others solo novels by these youngsters — develop the world significantly, in a sequence of shorter arcs specializing in completely different, much less dragon-y facets of the planet. (And due to this fact, sadly, much less dragons-in-lust facets of the world as effectively.) —TR

To Form a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Picture: Del Rey Books

Moniquill Blackgoose’s To Form a Dragon’s Breath is a narrative that takes on colonialism and racism advised in a steampunk world that’s powered by dragons. The individuals of Masquapaug had way back been pushed to a distant island as Anglish settlers took over the mainland. Dragons haven’t been seen on Masquapaug in generations, till Anequs, a 15-year-old indigenous woman, finds and hatches a dragon egg with the assistance of her group. Anequs is called a Nampeshiweisit for her relationship with the dragon. However the colonizers worry Anequs and her dragon, and pressure her to increase her dragon in accordance with their very own guidelines: She should attend the Anglish dragon faculty or her dragon shall be killed.

To Form a Dragon’s Breath follows Anequs’ rising relationship together with her dragon, Kasaqua, as they resist the norms the Anglish individuals are attempting to placed on them; the Anglish see dragons as instruments or weapons, however Anequs and Kasaqua have a deeper bond that’s constructed on respect and custom. —N. Carpenter

Disabled and/or chronically sick predominant character books

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Picture: Penguin Teen

Iron Widow has made a huge effect on the younger grownup science fiction and fantasy style for its feminist storytelling that tackles the misogyny of its vivid, merciless world head-on. The Huaxia nation is below assault by large alien creatures; the nation defends its borders utilizing mechas referred to as Chrysalises. Ladies in Huaxia are little greater than a instrument to energy these Chrysalises for his or her male pilots, who drain the qi of their “concubines” till there’s nothing left. Wu Zetian enlists to avenge her sister, however finally ends up overpowering and killing her male accomplice — branding her as a harmful Iron Widow that’s each a robust instrument for the military however a pressure that have to be managed. Iron Widow is the story of how Wu Zetian breaks down the sexist system.

Wu Zetian is a robust girl who’s additionally disabled after her ft have been sure as a toddler; the persistent ache she experiences from her ft means she walks with a cane or makes use of a wheelchair when she’s not controlling her mech with co-pilot Li Shimin, a pilot thought-about a harmful prison by Huaxia. The federal government, too, has discovered a means to management Li Shimin, who doesn’t conform to societal norms, by feeding an alcohol dependancy. Iron Widow is intense in each battle and its relationships, dismantling tropes and expectations at each flip. —N. Carpenter

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Picture: Sq. Fish

Six of Crows has turn out to be beloved each as a bestselling heist fantasy and as a Netflix adaptation. The motion and romance make this guide simple to read in a single sitting. However the crew particularly has all the time been a standout component of the story, led by the magnetic and scary kingpin Kaz Brekker. Kaz runs the Crows, a gang in Ketterdam that hatches quite a few heists throughout two books — turning into embroiled in a geopolitical energy battle over magic and who will get to use it, and a extremely addictive drug that amplifies a magic-wielder’s powers.

Kaz can be the recent disabled antihero I’d been pining for for years. He walks with a limp, utilizing a cane for mobility functions and as a weapon. He, like almost each member of his crew, is recovering from just a few deeply traumatic incidents — one occasion particularly makes it laborious for him to contact different individuals, and so he wears gloves. I consumed this duology so shortly, and would read any new addition in a heartbeat. —N. Clark

Lethal trials books

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Picture: Ohta Publishing

I’ll take any excuse to suggest this pulpy traditional to extra readers. In Battle Royale, junior highschool college students are dropped off on a abandoned island, the place they have to combat to the demise — as a part of an authoritarian authorities scheme, after all. There are 42 college students, and almost each single considered one of them will get a sort of grotesque highlight.

This guide might be the obvious progenitor to The Starvation Video games and Squid Sport in that it’s a combat to the demise. However the place The Starvation Video games emphasizes its dictatorial authorities and the category system round it, and Squid Sport has distinct aggressive video games, Battle Royale focuses on the terrifying interpersonal dynamics between younger people who find themselves determined to survive. On this means, it’s just a little nearer to Lord of the Flies, the bloodthirsty novel that’s nonetheless thought-about traditional studying in a variety of colleges.

It’s additionally simply paced amazingly — like 600 pages, however you possibly can read it in a day, it’s so un-put-down-able. —N. Clark

The Serpent & The Wings of Evening by Carissa Broadbent

Picture: Bramble

The Serpent & The Wings of Evening is one other standout romantasy guide that options Starvation Video games-like lethal trials. Like Fourth Wing, it additionally stars a younger girl who should combat her means by a lethal competitors, although she is underpowered in contrast to her friends — a minimum of, that’s the way it seems to be on the floor. However this guide has a extra supernatural taste.

Oraya is the adopted human daughter of the vampire king, and she or he should combat her means by the Kejari, an especially brutal match held by the goddess of demise, Nyxia. However the odds are not in her favor; rivals from a number of main vampire factions pose a significant menace. She should study to work along with Raihn, the vampire who’s her best competitors… however will he turn out to be extra to her? I’ll allow you to determine that one out. —N. Clark