Books Like Fourth Wing: 9 Romantasy Reads to Devour Next
Dragon bonds, brutal war colleges and enemies-to-lovers tension for Basgiath graduates.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros did not so much launch as detonate, and for good reason. Violet Sorrengail, bookish and brittle-boned, is forced into Basgiath War College, where dragons incinerate the cadets they deem unworthy and classmates will happily finish the job. Add Xaden Riorson, the brooding wingleader with every reason to want her dead, and you have the modern template for romantasy that reads like a dare: short chapters, constant peril, enemies-to-lovers tension you could bottle, and spice that arrives with genuine payoff.
What readers actually chase after Fourth Wing tends to be one of four things: the dragon bond, the deadly school, the slow-collapsing hostility between two people who cannot afford to trust each other, or simply that breathless, one-more-chapter pace. The nine books below cover all four angles, and we have flagged which itch each one scratches so you can pick your poison.
What to read after Fourth Wing
Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
The closest like-for-like match on this list: orphans of a bloody revolution compete in dragonriding tournaments for the rank of Firstrider, and the two frontrunners are best friends with a buried, catastrophic history. It trades spice for politics, and the moral questions cut deeper than Basgiath ever asks, but the aerial trials and rivals-with-feelings dynamic are all here. Criminally underread.
Find Fireborne at Ever After Books
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout
If it was the Violet-and-Xaden tension and the spice you loved, start here. Poppy, the veiled Maiden promised to the gods, meets a new guard with secrets stacked on secrets, and the forbidden slow-then-suddenly romance became a phenomenon for a reason. The pacing has the same compulsive, feed-me-another-chapter quality, and the series twist is a genuine jaw-dropper.
Find From Blood and Ash at Ever After Books
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
Two rival journalists on a city paper are connected, unknowingly, by a pair of enchanted typewriters while a war between gods grinds toward their doorstep. This is the gentler cousin of Fourth Wing: the rivalry is fought in bylines rather than sparring rings, and the yearning does the work spice does elsewhere. If the war setting and the enemies-to-lovers arc mattered more to you than the heat, it is a beautiful next step.
Find Divine Rivals at Ever After Books
Powerless by Lauren Roberts
In a kingdom where the powerless are banished, Paedyn fakes her way through life as an Elite, until she is thrown into the Purging Trials alongside the two princes. Deadly competition, hidden identity, banter with a blade under it: the ingredients are pure Fourth Wing, aimed slightly younger. Expect a love triangle handled with more wit than the trope usually gets.
Find Powerless at Ever After Books
Zodiac Academy: The Awakening by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti
Twin heirs discover they are fae royalty and get thrown into Zodiac Academy, where the four ruling heirs make Basgiath's hazing look like a welcome party. This is the binge pick: nine enormous books of bully-romance chaos, escalating spice and cliffhangers built to keep you up until 3am. Not subtle, gloriously addictive, and the pay-offs land if you commit.
Find Zodiac Academy at Ever After Books
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
If you somehow reached Fourth Wing before Maas, this is the obvious gap to fill. A huntress kills a wolf in the woods and is dragged into the faerie lands of Prythian as payment, and what begins as a Beauty and the Beast retelling grows into sprawling court intrigue with one of romantasy's most argued-over couples. Slower to ignite than Yarros, but the series payoff is why the genre exists.
Find A Court of Thorns and Roses at Ever After Books
The Will of the Many by James Islington
An orphaned prince hides his identity inside the Catenan Academy, a ruthless institution where students climb a ranking system that feeds an empire built on borrowed willpower. There is barely a romance in sight, so be warned, but if what hooked you was the deadly school, the competence, the alliances and the constant threat of exposure, this is the best pure war-college fantasy of the last decade.
Find The Will of the Many at Ever After Books
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
The Napoleonic Wars, except both sides field an aerial corps of dragons, and a naval captain's life is upended when a captured egg hatches and chooses him. If Tairn and Andarna were your favourite characters, this series is the deepest dragon-and-rider bond in modern fantasy, warm, funny and quietly devastating. No romance to speak of; the love story is between a man and his dragon, and it is more than enough.
Find His Majesty's Dragon at Ever After Books
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
Maas again, but a completely different flavour: a half-fae party girl in a modern city of angels and demons teams up with a grief-stricken fallen warrior to solve a murder. The banter-heavy, trust-no-one dynamic between Bryce and Hunt scratches the Xaden itch, and the last two hundred pages are among the most breathless things Maas has written. A chunky book, but it earns the wrist strain.
Find House of Earth and Blood at Ever After Books
Keep the streak going
Still circling the shelves? Let What Should I Read Next? match you with your next obsession, stack your favourites on your TBR list, and raid our Fantasy collection for the rest of the dragon hoard.