12 books like A Court of Thorns and Roses
If what hooked you was the bargain with a beautiful, dangerous immortal and the slow turn from hostility to want, there's a whole shelf waiting. These picks split the difference between faerie courts, cursed houses and deadly competitions, with a few titles you're less likely to have met already.
Updated September 2026
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Mortals bargaining with the fae
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black 2018
A human girl surviving a faerie court that despises her, with the same barbed attraction to a cruel immortal; Black's Jude fights with politics and knives instead of falling into romance early, and the heat stays largely off the page.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson 2017
A mortal artist and a fae prince break the ancient laws that keep their worlds apart, much as Feyre and Tamlin do; it's a standalone of about 300 pages, so the ache arrives fast and finishes cleanly.
Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones 2017
A girl is taken underground by an inhuman king and finds captivity turning into something far more complicated, a familiar shape; here the seduction runs on music and grief, and the prose is stranger and sadder.
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett 2023
Old, genuinely dangerous folklore faeries and a prickly romance with one of them; the tone is wry and academic, told in diary entries from a scholar who'd rather take notes than swoon.
Cursed houses and captive heroines: Beauty and the Beast reworked
Uprooted by Naomi Novik 2015
A village girl is claimed by a powerful, irritable magician and finds the real threat is the wood beyond his tower, which will feel like home ground; the romance is a thin thread in a book far more interested in corrupted magic.
A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer 2019
A cursed prince, a repeating season and a girl who refuses to be a passive rescuer — the bones of Feyre's story; Kemmerer pulls her heroine in from modern Washington DC, and keeps things firmly YA.
Gild by Raven Kennedy 2021
A gilded captive in a beautiful cage, slowly realising her keeper is not her saviour, which is Under the Mountain territory; the Midas retelling is darker and more explicit, with less high-fantasy scaffolding.
Deadly trials and a morally grey love interest
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 2023
A heroine who shouldn't survive the tests set for her, plus a brooding rival with obvious Rhysand energy; the setting is a military college with dragons, and the pacing is relentless where Maas lingers.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent 2022
A human raised among immortals enters a tournament she's expected to die in, with an alliance that turns to want — very much the first ACOTAR's high-stakes contest; vampires replace fae, and the body count is higher.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik 2020
Survival against a school that's actively trying to kill you, with a reluctant partnership sharpening into something more; the narrator is caustic and funny, and romance is a slow background hum rather than the engine.
Court politics with a slow-burning romance
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri 2021
An imprisoned princess, an empire built on cruelty and a romance tangled up in power, echoing the second half of Feyre's story; it's sapphic, rooted in Indian history and myth, and unflinching about what rebellion costs.
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon 2023
Two soldiers on opposing sides forced into a political marriage, delivering the enemies-to-lovers tension readers come to Maas for; the world draws on Filipino folklore and the war plot carries as much weight as the romance.
If you also liked…
- Sarah J. Maas
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
- Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
- Lottie Brooks by Katie Kirby
Questions
- Which of these is closest to A Court of Thorns and Roses in spice level?
- Gild and The Serpent and the Wings of Night are as explicit or more so, and Fourth Wing is comparable. The Cruel Prince, An Enchantment of Ravens and A Curse So Dark and Lonely are YA and keep things tame.
- I want more faeries specifically, not just fantasy romance. Where should I start?
- The Cruel Prince for court intrigue and a cruel fae love interest, An Enchantment of Ravens for a shorter mortal-meets-prince romance, or Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries if you want folklore faeries who feel genuinely old and dangerous.
- Are any of these standalones? I'm not ready for another long series.
- Uprooted and An Enchantment of Ravens are complete in one volume. Wintersong has a sequel but reads perfectly well alone.