Books Like Fourth Wing: 7 Romantasy Reads to Devour Next

If you’ve torn through Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm and you’re now stuck between looking for more books like Fourth Wing or just out-staring the multi-year wait for book four — Rebecca Yarros isn’t expected to publish it before 2027, last I heard — welcome to the club. We’re all in the same waiting room here, and it’s not a short wait for a hangover this size.

So let’s do something about it.

Here’s the thing about Fourth Wing: it didn’t become a phenomenon by accident. It hit a very specific combination that makes a romantasy genuinely impossible to put down — a brutal, high-stakes trial (the war college’s washout rate is basically a body count), a bonded-creature relationship that carries as much emotional weight as the human one, and a slow-burn, enemies-adjacent romance that actually pays off. If you know which one of those you’re craving more of, that’s the fastest way to find your next read — and that’s how I’ve organized this list — by what you loved reading most, not just “here are books like fourth wing with dragons.”

Dragons and Rider-Bonds, Anyone?

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda. This is the one I recommend most, hands down, to Fourth Wing readers who came for the dragons specifically. Lee and Annie grew up together in the same orphanage — one secretly descended from the royal line their revolution overthrew, the other lowborn — and now they’re both competing to become Firstrider of their dragon-riding forces. The dragon-and-rider bond carries a lot of the same the emotional weight that Fourth Wing does. The tournament-for-rank structure is instantly familiar. Best of all, the whole trilogy’s already out, so there’s no waiting around for the finale of this one. Fair warning on tone, though: the romance (a childhood-friends-to-rivals arc) is there, but it’s much more restrained than Fourth Wing’s. This is the pick if you want the dragons and the trial-by-combat stakes without needing the sexual feels.

The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli. Another solid answer if books like Fourth Wing with dragons is specifically your ask, and if you’re fine with the romance taking even more of a back seat. Our heroine is her kingdom’s dragonslayer — a role she took on to atone for something in her past — and she’s promised to a commander she can’t stand. When her father offers her freedom in exchange for the head of the last dragon still breathing fire, she takes the deal. Real political intrigue, a genuinely interesting dragon mythology, and a slow-burn romance simmering underneath rather than driving the plot.

If a Deadly Trial and Lots of Spice is Your Jam

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent. If I had to name the truest match for what it actually feels like to read Fourth Wing, this is it — readers describe devouring it in a single sitting, and I believe them. Oraya is the adopted human daughter of the Vampire King, forever prey in a world built to kill her, and she enters a deadly tournament where the last competitor standing gets a wish granted by the goddess of Death. It’s got the enemies-to-lovers heat, the constant dread that the next chapter might kill someone you’ve gotten attached to, and an underdog lead who’s underestimated in exactly the way Violet was. It started as an indie release, but became so popular that Tor eventually picked it up for wider publishing. As a bonus, that’s usually a decent tell about the high writing quality, if that’s something that’s on your list at all.

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout. I’d be doing this list a disservice if I left this one off, because it’s one of the most common answers you’ll get if you ask a room full of romantasy readers what to pick up after Fourth Wing. Millions of copies, a genuinely massive and devoted fanbase, and a will-they-won’t-they between Poppy and Hawke that plenty of readers talk about in the same breathless terms as Violet and Xaden. Poppy is the Maiden, kept isolated and veiled her whole life to fulfill a destiny she never chose, guarded by the mysterious, lethal Hawke — and if you love lots and lots of introspection while watching a heavily guarded, high-stakes bond unravel slowly, this is the series everyone’s talking about for a reason.

If You’re Looking for the “Romantasy Feels”

A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet. For readers who loved Fourth Wing’s overall vibe more than any single plot mechanic — the tension, the world, the way romance and stakes escalate together — this Greek-mythology-inflected series scratches a similar itch from a different angle entirely. Cat is a Kingmaker with a rare, dangerous gift, doing everything she can to stay hidden from a destiny she doesn’t want, right up until a warlord with his own agenda finds her anyway. High fantasy, a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers arc at its center, and it reads just as unapologetically fantasy-first as Fourth Wing does.

Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen. The newest name on this list, and already sitting at a genuinely strong 4.3+ average across 200,000+ Goodreads ratings — that’s real reader validation, not just algorithm-fed hype. Swap dragons for direwolves: Meryn, fighting to survive and get her sister back from the enemy who took her, ends up bonded to one of her country’s most fearsome war-beasts and thrown into a series of trials to prove herself. Readers keep describing it as having Fourth Wing’s intensity, but with a Harry-Potter-adjacent found-family vibe underneath. Different species, same electric slow burn.

(You’ve almost certainly already stumbled onto ACOTAR and Throne of Glass by now — they show up in literally every “books like Fourth Wing and ACOTAR” list on the internet, ours included, so I won’t spend your time re-explaining them here. If it’s specifically something in that same lane you haven’t tried yet, the picks above are where I’d point you instead.)

BUT: If It’s the Romance, With Real Emotional and Spiritual Weight You’re After…

What God Has Ordained by Alesia & Michael Matson. I’ll be upfront about why this one’s on the list: it’s ours, and it earns its spot for a reason, not just because Michael and I co-wrote it. One of the things that makes Fourth Wing work is Violet and Xaden’s relationship. It is inseparable from the stakes of their world — what happens between them actually changes what happens to everyone else. And, What God Has Ordained runs on that same principle, but the fate riding on the relationship isn’t military or political. It’s the working out of a prophecy neither of them knows they’re inside. Coralin is a priestess-knight, not a cadet; Athos is a crown prince carrying a destiny he can’t see; and the slow burn between them plays out against a backdrop of forty years of war and a society that regards honor as currency, not just a nicety. If Fourth Wing hooked you on romance that’s inseparable from the fate of a whole world, but what you’re actually craving is faith, miracles, and destiny instead of dragons and war colleges, this is where I’d invite you to come next. The first ARC is free — grab it now and see for yourself.

Have you got a favorite Fourth Wing read-alike I didn’t list? You know I would love to know — scroll down and leave me a comment!

And, while you’re waiting on book four you can read the ARC of What God Has Ordained, the first book in The Legacy of Chandar series, absolutely free — download it from BookFunnel or BookSirens today!

Featured Image by Chil Vera from Pixabay