Books Like Fourth Wing: Here's What to Read Next
Books like Fourth Wing don't come around all that often — the kind that eat your weekend whole, leave you absolutely furious when you hit the last page, and have you texting friends at 11pm asking if they've read it yet. Rebecca Yarros built something genuinely addictive: a world with dragon riders, brutal military academia, a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance that actually delivers, and enough political intrigue to keep you turning pages long past midnight. If you've finished it (and Iron Flame and Onyx Storm after it) and you're now staring at your bookshelf feeling lost, this is for you — whether you're looking for romantasy books like Fourth Wing, or just trying to figure out what to read after Fourth Wing without trawling Reddit for hours.
We ran it through More Like This — our AI book discovery tool — to find what actually scratches the same itch. Not just "other fantasy books". The specific mix: fierce female lead, tension-soaked romance, a world with serious stakes, and writing that moves fast enough to make you miss your stop on the Tube.
First: A Quick Word on the Empyrean Series
If you're new to the world or trying to get your bearings on the Fourth Wing book series, here's a quick orientation. The Empyrean series order runs: Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm — with more books to follow. So if you're wondering how many books in the Empyrean series there are right now, the answer is three published, with the series still ongoing. The Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm order is the correct reading sequence, and each book ends on enough of a cliffhanger to make waiting for the next one genuinely painful.
For UK readers: if you're looking to buy Fourth Wing UK, it's widely available — but it's worth knowing that the Fourth Wing special edition UK and the Fourth Wing Waterstones exclusive edition (with sprayed edges and exclusive cover art) are particularly popular. The Fourth Wing sprayed edges UK edition has become something of a collector's item, and the Fourth Wing UK vs US edition differs mainly in cover design and some retailer-exclusive extras.
What Makes Books Like Fourth Wing So Hard to Put Down
Before the recommendations, it's worth naming exactly what Yarros got right — because not every fantasy book does all of this at once:
- The romantic tension is earned. Xaden and Violet don't get together easily. The push-pull lasts long enough to actually mean something — it's the Fourth Wing enemies-to-lovers dynamic at its best.
- The world has rules — and consequences. Basgiath War College isn't Hogwarts. People die. The stakes feel real.
- The protagonist isn't invincible. Violet has a chronic illness. She has to be clever, not just powerful. That matters.
- It moves fast. Short chapters, constant forward momentum. It reads like a TV show structured for binge-watching.
Any book recommendation worth its salt needs to match at least three of those four. Here's what comes closest when you're thinking about books similar to Fourth Wing and Iron Flame — or what to read after Onyx Storm.
The Closest Match: From Blood and Ash — Jennifer L. Armentrout
If Fourth Wing is your starting point, From Blood and Ash is probably the most natural next read. Poppy is a Maiden — sheltered, controlled, chosen for a sacred purpose she doesn't fully understand — and Hawke is her guard, who is absolutely not what he seems. The romantic tension is almost painfully good, the world-building reveals itself in slow, satisfying layers, and the pacing has that same quality where you tell yourself "just one more chapter" and suddenly it's 2am.
It's a longer, lusher read than Fourth Wing, with more explicit romance, but the emotional beats are very similar: a heroine who is more capable than anyone around her believes, a love interest shrouded in secrets, and a world that keeps pulling the rug out from under you. The series now runs to multiple books, so if you love it, you've got a proper run ahead of you. For readers searching for books like Fourth Wing UK editions, this series is widely stocked across British retailers.
Available from: Waterstones, Amazon UK, and most independent bookshops. Audiobook on Audible UK.
The Second Match: A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas
Unavoidable, really. A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) is the book that much of the current wave of romantasy is written in the shadow of, and for good reason. Feyre is a human hunter drawn into a world of Fae — dangerous, beautiful, and politically fractured — and what starts as a Beauty and the Beast retelling becomes something considerably darker and more complex as the series progresses.
If Fourth Wing is your first venture into romantasy, ACOTAR is your second education. The first book is the slowest of the series — stick with it. By A Court of Mist and Fury (book two), you'll understand why people read it three times. Rhysand is, for many readers, the reason they got into the genre in the first place.
Maas also wrote the Crescent City series and Throne of Glass, both of which have crossover appeal if you work through ACOTAR and want more. If you're a fan of the Fourth Wing romantasy blend of action and romance, Maas is essential reading.
Available from: Waterstones, WH Smith, Amazon UK, and most supermarket book sections.
The Wildcard: Babel — R.F. Kuang
This one's a different beast — and deliberately so. Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang doesn't have dragon riders or slow-burn romance in the traditional sense. What it has is the dark academia aesthetic cranked up to eleven: Oxford in the 1830s, a secret institute of translation magic, and a group of brilliant, morally compromised students who are slowly realising the institution they love is built on exploitation.
If what you loved about books like Fourth Wing was the atmosphere — the dangerous school, the loyalty between a tight group, the sense that knowledge is power and power has a cost — then Babel will get under your skin in a different but equally lasting way. Kuang's prose is extraordinary. It's denser than Yarros, more literary, and it doesn't always give you what you want emotionally. But it gives you something better: a book you'll think about for weeks after you finish it.
Available from: Waterstones, Amazon UK, and independent bookshops. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.
A Few More Worth Knowing About
Depending on which part of Fourth Wing pulled you in most:
- If it was the dragon bond: Try Eragon by Christopher Paolini if you haven't — yes, it's YA, but the dragon-rider relationship is genuinely moving — or The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon for a more epic, literary take on dragons and queenship.
- If it was the enemies-to-lovers tension: The Bridge Kingdom series by Danielle L. Jensen delivers that in spades — political marriage, mutual distrust, slow realisation that the enemy might be the only honest person in the room. It's one of the best picks for fans of the Fourth Wing enemies-to-lovers romantasy dynamic.
- If it was the military academy setting: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff features an assassin school with brutal trials, dark magic, and footnotes that are somehow both funny and ominous. It's darker and more violent, but the atmosphere is unmatched.
How to Find Books Like Fourth Wing Without Trawling Reddit for Hours
The problem with asking "what should I read after Fourth Wing?" online is that you get 200 different answers, half of which are people recommending the same six books regardless of what you actually liked about it. Genre is a blunt instrument. What you actually want is something that matches the feeling — the pacing, the romantic tension, the specific kind of world-building.
That's what More Like This is built for. Type in a book you love — or a description of what you're after — and the AI searches across real UK book retailers to return three curated picks: a closest match, a well-matched alternative, and a wildcard you probably wouldn't have found yourself. No algorithm pushing bestsellers. No affiliate rankings. Just honest recommendations based on what you're actually looking for. It works brilliantly for anyone hunting for books like Fourth Wing UK stockists too, since results link directly to where you can actually buy them.
We've already written about this for readers of Project Hail Mary and Dungeon Crawler Carl — different genres entirely, same principle: tell us what you love, we'll find what's next.
The Short Version
- Closest Match: From Blood and Ash — Jennifer L. Armentrout. Same energy, great tension, big series ahead of you.
- Second Match: A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas. The genre touchstone. Don't skip book two.
- Wildcard: Babel — R.F. Kuang. Darker, denser, and the book you'll recommend to everyone for the next year.
Books like Fourth Wing leave a gap that's genuinely hard to fill — but these come closest, each in their own way and on their own terms. Whether you're still working through the Fourth Wing Empyrean series order or you've already devoured Onyx Storm and need something new, type your next read into More Like This and see what the AI finds for you.