Fourth Wing took over my life and wouldn’t let go. Then came Iron Flame and took me deeper into the story. And there was Onyx Storm, which by the way still has my heart after ripping it right out of my chest. Now everything in my TBR feels like it’s trying to live up to the standard Xaden, Violet and their dragons have set.
That being said, there are other books out there. Fourth Wing, while one of a kind, opened the path for many of us to discover what that lightning in a bottle can feel like with the right story.
Some of us loved the enemies to lovers, especially when it’s just the right amount of slow burn. Others are just there for the dragons (who wouldn’t? They’re iconic). Many of us love a good academic setup. Of course, there are those of us who just love a clever FMC, or an MMC who’s a “villain” just for her.
With that in mind, we tried to put together a list of books that scratches that specific spot Fourth Wing itched for you. Find the reason you loved Fourth Wing to find your next read. And if you want to read just too many of them, then that means we did our research right. Keep in mind some of these are going to be spicy books like Fourth Wing, while others are going to be closed door as we tried to include as much variety as we can. Whether you like your books spicy or closed door, you should find something that fits the bill.
Some of these series might overlap with other categories (e.g. they might be both Dark Academia and Enemies to Lovers). And as always, check the trigger warnings.
If you’re forever chasing the feeling Fourth Wing made you feel, we’re right there with you. Let’s find a new world to escape to.
If You Liked Fourth Wing…
Because of the Slow Burn Enemies to Lovers
They seemingly hate each other. They’re enemies for a reason. Maybe they got into it when they first met and had bad impressions. Maybe their families have been at each other’s throats for centuries. Maybe they are born to be enemies because the stars, fate, or gods made them so.
And yet… there are lingering gazes. Brushing hands. Inch by inch, moment by moment, they have to fight their attraction and they fight it every step. AND they hate themselves for it.
We have a complete post dedicated to Enemies to Lovers, but here are some more series that might scratch the itch.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Jude is a human girl growing up in the world of Faerie, which is not a safe or kind place to be human. Cardan is a faerie prince, and he’s mean to her for reasons unbeknownst to us, so she learns to fight back. Cardan might be cruel, but Jude is ruthless. The two of them and their families find themselves playing a deadly game for the crown of Elfhame.
The Cruel Prince, although YA, is our top enemies to lovers book and the standard we judge all other novels against. There is no spice, but you need to read this if you’re a fan of enemies to lovers. You can check out our full The Cruel Prince Reading order if this sounds like your cup of tea.
How Spicy is The Cruel Prince by Holly Black?: 🌶️🌶️
Book of Azrael by Amber V. Nicole
Dianna made a deal with a monster centuries ago to save her dying sister, and she’s been bound to him as his weapon ever since. He sends her after an ancient relic held by Samkiel, a god-king who walked away from his own throne after a war. Dianna is a shapeshifter and one of the monsters her world fears, and Samkiel is the enemy she’s set up against..
How spicy if the Book of Azrael by Amber V. Nicole?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Never Keep by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti
Never Keep is a Zodiac Academy spin-off set in the same world, where the dragons are gone and the four elemental kingdoms are at war. Every Fae is conscripted at twenty-one and sent to a brutal fortress called Never Keep. The main character is one of the few starting to see through her side’s lies, and the love interest is a man who wants her dead. You don’t need to have read Zodiac Academy first.
We have a ton of Zodiac Academy content on our side obviously but check out our Zodiac Academy Reading Guide to get started!
How spicy is Never Keep by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Alchemised by SenLinYu
Helena wakes up as a prisoner of war with most of her memory missing, on the losing side of a war the necromancers won. The man holding her, Kaine, is the enemy tasked with pulling the secrets out of her head. It’s a single, very long standalone, and the romance is a captor-and-prisoner slow burn. This was originally a Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy fan fiction, named Manacled.
How spicy is Alchemised by SenLinYu?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Alchemised
Description
In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.
This stunning hardcover edition features a deluxe jacket with gold foil on the front and a full-color illustration on the reverse, gorgeous designed endpapers, a gold foil case stamp, and, from acclaimed artist Avendell, a black-and-white interior illustration.
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”
Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.
In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.
According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?
To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.
Because of the Dragons or Animal Companions
More than half the reason we love Fourth Wing is the dragons. Not just that they exist, but that they choose you, they talk back, and they’re grumpy and/or sassy. A good bonded creature has its own personality and its own opinions, and the bond between it and the main character ends up being one of the best relationships in the book.
When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker
In this world, when a dragon dies it calcifies into a moon. Raeve is an assassin for a rebellion, and after a bounty hunter upends her life she ends up imprisoned and drawn to a morally grey warrior king. Dragons and the bond between rider and dragon are central, woven through a past Raeve can’t remember.
How spicy is When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
On Wings of Blood by Briar Boleyn
Medra is half-fae and supposedly the last of the dragon riders, though no dragons remain. She wakes in a vampire-ruled realm, is magically bound to an arrogant vampire prince, and is thrust into a deadly academy run by highblood vampires.
How spicy is On Wings of Blood by Briar Boleyn?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
No list about dragons or bonded creatures would be complete without Throne of Glass.
Celaena is the most famous assassin in her kingdom, and she competes to become the king’s champion, which opens into a much larger story about her world and the throne. What starts as a story of “what if Cinderella was an assassin” turns into the most epic saga of heroes trying to make a better world.
How spicy is Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter
Astrid is the last witch of her line and heir to her queendom, and an old covenant forces her to duel the heir of the rival kingdom, a dragon-riding prince, in a fight to the death for control of the source of all magic.
How spicy is Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Blood Bound
Description
You duel or you die.
Astrid has always known she is destined to die. She is the last Nachstern witch and heir to the Queendom of Arturea, cursed by a centuries-old covenant to duel the heir to the Kingdom of Vatra for the source of all magic: the Heart. And now Astrid’s time is up. She is heading into enemy territory to face Prince Zryan, the most powerful dragon rider in eons, with only her familiar, her potions, and her wits to aid her. She is going to die, and any chance her queendom has of curing the Blight that’s ravaging the lands and killing her people will die with her.
Meanwhile, deep in dragon country, Skylar and her travelling troupe arrive in Vatra’s capital, ready to profit off the legions of spectators swarming to the city ahead of the duel. She despises the royals and all they stand for, especially as the King’s guard murdered her mother. But when her best friend disappears, suspected to have been taken in the conscription, her search takes her closer to the royals than she ever could have imagined.
As the duel looms over the kingdom, Skylar and Astrid’s fates intertwine. They must battle a growing rebellion, their inner demons, and ultimately, those they love most, to determine if together they will save—or doom—their world.
Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen
Meryn is a street fighter who has always hated the Bonded, the elite warriors mind-linked to vicious direwolves. When her sister is taken, she enlists to the army, faces the deadly bonding trials, and bonds a feral direwolf of her own.
How spicy is Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
While Direbound wasn’t our cup of tea, it is heavily marketed as Fourth Wing-esque, so we’re including it on this list.
Of Flames and Fallacies by Courtney Whims
In this kingdom, possessing anything dragon-related is punishable by execution, so when Katerina finds a dragon egg in her father’s grave, she has to smuggle the hatchling to safety through a war, with help from an old flame and a pull toward a more dangerous man.
How spicy is Of Flames and Fallacies by Courtney Whims?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Because of the School, Military or Dark Academia Setting
There’s something about a school. It’s probably because we’re the Harry Potter generation. Fourth Wing turned the magic academy into a war college, where the lessons can kill you and so can the people sitting next to you. Whether it’s military, magic, or gothic dark academia, the draw is the same: the training, the rankings, the rivals who turn into something more, and the friends who become family because you’re all just trying to survive the year.
Zodiac Academy by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Twin sisters Tory and Darcy discover they’re the lost heirs to a magical kingdom and enroll at a cutthroat fae academy where your star sign determines your power. But, the throne is already claimed by the four Celestial Heirs who are determined to drive them off. Whether the Celestial Heirs are their enemy or the monsters hiding in the shadows, Tory and Darcy have to find their way as the heirs to the Solarian throne.
How spicy is Zodiac Academy by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
If you’re familiar with our blog, then you’re no stranger to our love for Zodiac Academy.
Nocticadia by Keri Lake
Lilia wins a scholarship to a remote, supposedly haunted university on an island, and is drawn to a cold professor the students call Doctor Death. It’s a gothic dark-academia standalone with a forbidden student-and-professor romance and an age gap, plus a mystery about the island and Lilia’s own past.
How spicy is Nocticadia by Keri Lake?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Nocticadia (Deluxe Edition)
Description
From USA Today bestselling author Keri Lake comes a hardcover repackage of her TikTok sensation Nocticadia, a dark, atmospheric tale of deadly secrets and forbidden love.
Mortui vivos docent.
The dead teach the living.
After watching my mother succumb to a mysterious illness, I promised myself two things. I’d find the cure for what ravaged her. And leave the godforsaken city where she abandoned me.
Four years later, I receive an acceptance letter from Dracadia University, one of the oldest, most prestigious schools in the country. Nestled on a secluded island off the coast of Maine, it’s rumored to be haunted by the souls of the mental patients exiled there centuries before. Those whose bones are said to make up the island’s white sandy shores.
And restless ghosts aren’t even its most daunting peculiarity.
Devryck Bramwell, known on campus as Doctor Death, is a brilliant pathologist in charge of the midnight lab. He’s also my devastatingly handsome professor, who seems to loathe tenacious first-years, like me. Except, his dark and enigmatic gaze tells me all the ways he’d devour me if given the chance, and his stolen kisses burn my lips with forbidden jealousy.
I crave his authority.
He aches for redemption.
Together, we’re toxic. Delicious fodder for the prying eyes hellbent on exhuming the rotted skeletons of our pasts.
For the dead have much to teach, and it’s only a matter of time before Dracadia’s most depraved secret is resurrected.
Perfect for fans of Kaylie Smith, Briar Boleyn, and Rina Kent, Nocticadia is a standalone dark academia gothic romance.
Delicious tropes:
- Dark academia
- Gothic romance
- Teacher x student
- Forbidden romance
- Age gap
- Slow burn
The Ordeals by Rachel Greenlaw
Sophia is magically bound to her cruel uncle, and her only way out is gaining entry to an elite magic college by surviving the Ordeals, a set of often-deadly trials. She works alongside a botanist she’s drawn to while a murder mystery unfolds on campus.
How spicy is The Ordeals by Rachel Greenlaw?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Because of the Grumpy Hero Who’s a Villain Just for Her
Some of us don’t want the nice guy. We want the one who’s cold and cruel to everyone except her. He’d burn a kingdom down, but he’s a cinnamon roll to her. He’s rude to the entire world and soft for one person, and watching him let her past all of that is the whole appeal.
The Plated Prisoner by Raven Kennedy
A dark King Midas retelling. Auren is King Midas’s prized, gilded possession, kept in a literal cage of gold. Slade is a king with rot magic who reads as a villain to most of the people around him. When Auren and Slade’s path collide, so does the world’s fate.
How spicy is Plated Prisoner by Raven Kennedy?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Avalon Tower by C.N. Crawford & Alex Rivers
Nia is kidnapped by an arrogant fey named Raphael once it’s discovered she can cross between the human and fey worlds, a rare power. She’s forced to train at a spy academy in Camelot to help fight an evil fey king, with a forbidden pull between her and her mentor.
How spicy is Avalon Tower by C.N. Crawford & Alex Rivers?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
The Ever King by L.J. Andrews
A dark fantasy with pirates, sirens, fae, and a Viking streak. Erik is a cursed king set on revenge, and Livia is the princess whose kindness stayed in his memory. The two are thrown together to heal a land that’s falling sick.
How spicy is The Ever King by L.J. Andrews?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
Evangeline believes in true love until the person she loves is about to marry someone else, so she strikes a bargain with Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, to stop the wedding. Jacks is a wicked Fate whose kiss is fatal to everyone but his one true love.
How spicy is Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber?: 🌶️
Because of the Clever FMC
Not every heroine wins with a sword. Some of them win with their head. Violet survived Basgiath because she was smart, not because she was the strongest one there, and there’s a specific satisfaction in watching a woman outthink a room full of people who underestimated her. These FMCs talk their way out of corners, plan three moves ahead, and use being underestimated as a weapon. Here are five led by an FMC who’s the smartest person in the room.
Reign & Ruin by J.D. Evans
Naime is heir to a sultanate and a light mage, and she’s running things behind the scenes while hiding her father’s failing health from a council that would use it against her. She allies with Makram, an exiled prince with forbidden death magic, to keep their world’s magic from collapsing.
How spicy is Reign & Ruin by J.D. Evans?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
Osric is an assassin slowly dying of a magic rot, and the only person who can heal him is Aurienne, a brilliant healer from the order he’s at war with. He bribes her into keeping him alive, and the two are forced to work together. Aurienne is a methodical scientist and healer. It’s a very slow burn and has a very dry humor that’s hilarious if it hits the right spot.
How spicy is Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher
Stephen is a paladin whose god died, leaving him and his order adrift. He meets Grace, a perfumer keeping a low profile, when he witnesses a botched assassination, and the two are pulled into a plot involving poisoners and a killer leaving severed heads around the city.
How spicy is Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry
Odessa is the overlooked back-up princess, and she’s unexpectedly chosen, instead of her favored sister, to marry an enemy prince to seal a treaty. She crosses a cursed, monster-filled land alongside the prince’s grumpy bodyguard.
How spicy is Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
A Requiem for Fallen Stars by Hazel S. Wilkes
Lyra is a servant to the king who comes into her magic and flees, ending up at an elite academy where she must survive deadly trials. On the way she’s saved by Draven, a grumpy, powerful mentor figure.
How spicy is A Requiem for Fallen Stars by Hazel S. Wilkes?: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
That does it for the round up!
What are you picking up first? We’d love to know. If you have any other recs that fit these categories better than what we’ve listed here we’d love to hear that too!
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