Books Like A Court of Thorns and Roses: 12 Romantasy Reads for ACOTAR Fans

Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses did not invent romantasy, but it defined the genre’s modern form. The novel draws from the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale and reframes it as an adult fae story: mortal huntress Feyre is taken to Prythian, a world of immortal fae courts, where her captor Tamlin is neither as monstrous nor as safe as he first appears. What makes it work is Maas’s willingness to let the romance carry genuine tension — the enemies-to-lovers arc is slow, the world-building is immersive, and the shift in the second half of the book from something like a dark fairy tale into action and consequence is handled with real craft. The sequels, particularly A Court of Mist and Fury, have become even more beloved than the original.

The romantasy genre that ACOTAR helped build has now produced dozens of series that share its essential ingredients: a magical world with political stakes, a central romance that earns its resolution, a strong female protagonist navigating power she is still learning to understand, and a willingness to go darker and more explicit than the YA fantasy that preceded it. Some of the books below are adult romantasy at full heat; others are YA-adjacent, with the fae politics and complicated love interests but less explicit content. That distinction matters, and this list flags it clearly.

If You Want to Continue with Sarah J. Maas

#1 — A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

The second book in the ACOTAR series is, by almost universal agreement among readers, the best entry in the series and one of the strongest romantasy novels published in the past decade. Feyre’s situation at the start of the book is genuinely difficult, and the new court she is brought into — the Night Court, governed by Rhysand — is a far more complex and interesting world than what came before. The romance arc is precisely constructed, the supporting characters are compelling enough to anchor their own spin-offs, and the novel’s exploration of trauma, autonomy, and found family gives the love story actual stakes. If you have not read this yet, it is the most urgent next step.

#2 — Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Maas’s debut series follows Celaena Sardothien, an assassin pressed into competing for the role of the king’s champion. The early books are younger in tone than ACOTAR — Celaena is eighteen, the romance is slower to develop, and the world-building is more conventional high fantasy — but the series escalates dramatically across its eight volumes, becoming one of the most ambitious fantasy series of its era by the final books. Readers who want more Maas before committing to the full ACOTAR series, or who want to understand how her craft developed, will find this a deeply rewarding entry point.

Adult Romantasy at the Same Heat Level

#3 — Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Violet Sorrengail is pushed into the rider quadrant of Basgiath War College against her will, where she must bond with a dragon or die trying. Xaden Riorson, the son of a rebel executed for treason, has every reason to want her dead and is too compelling to stay away from. Fourth Wing was the most talked-about romantasy release of 2023 and earned every bit of that attention: Yarros writes enemies-to-lovers with genuine electricity, the dragon-riding world is original and well-built, and the explicit content is in the same register as ACOTAR’s later volumes. The military academy setting gives the romance a pressure-cooker intensity that ACOTAR fans find immediately familiar.

#4 — Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

The direct sequel to Fourth Wing, continuing Violet and Xaden’s story as the truth about the war they have been trained to fight becomes impossible to ignore. Iron Flame is longer and denser than its predecessor, and the romance arc deepens in ways that are satisfying precisely because Yarros refuses to make things easy. The second-book betrayal and its fallout are handled with more psychological honesty than most romantasy manages. Readers who binged Fourth Wing in a weekend will find this just as consuming.

#5 — From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Poppy is the Chosen — a sacred maiden kept apart from the world, destined for a ritual she doesn’t fully understand. Hawke is her guard, and everything about him is wrong in exactly the right ways. Armentrout’s series is the closest companion read to ACOTAR in the adult romantasy space: the heat level is equivalent, the hero is morally complicated in ways that are gradually revealed, and the mythology-heavy world-building creates the same sense of a much larger story operating beneath the surface romance. The first book ends on a revelation that completely reframes everything that came before it.

Fae Courts and Morally Complicated Love Interests

#6 — The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Jude Duarte is mortal and powerless in Faerie, which makes her more dangerous than almost anyone expects. The fae politics in Black’s novel are intricate and genuinely threatening — faeries cannot lie but construct deceptions so elaborate that the distinction barely matters — and the romantic tension between Jude and the prince she is scheming against is one of the better-executed slow burns in the genre. The Cruel Prince is YA in its content: the romance stops well short of ACOTAR’s explicit territory. But the fae world-building is more rigorous than most adult romantasy, and Jude is one of the most compelling female protagonists in the genre.

#7 — Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

Set in 1800s Sicily, Audrey Rose Wadsworth makes a deal with a demon prince to find her twin brother’s murderer. Maniscalco’s novel blends historical fiction, gothic atmosphere, and the fae-adjacent tension of a mortal woman navigating a supernatural world that operates by different rules. The enemies-to-lovers dynamic has the same slow-burn quality as ACOTAR, and the setting gives the romantic tension a period-appropriate pressure that feels fresh against the contemporary-leaning romantasy field. The demon prince, Wrath, is exactly the kind of complicated antihero that ACOTAR fans will recognize.

Epic Fantasy with Strong Romantic Threads

#8 — An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Laia is a Scholar girl who infiltrates a brutal military academy to save her brother. Elias is the academy’s finest soldier who wants nothing more than to escape it. Tahir’s dual-POV structure puts two protagonists with incompatible loyalties on a collision course, and the romantic tension that builds between them is intensified by the impossibility of the situation. The world — a Rome-inspired empire built on violent suppression — is more politically serious than most romantasy, and the violence has genuine weight. ACOTAR fans who want the same intensity with more emphasis on the world-building stakes will find this satisfying.

#9 — Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Alina Starkov discovers she has a rare magical ability that could be the key to saving her country from a supernatural darkness called the Fold. The Darkling, who commands the magical elite, takes a deep interest in her. Bardugo’s Grisha world is one of the most fully realized settings in modern fantasy, and the Darkling remains one of the genre’s great morally ambiguous love interests — compelling enough that debates about his true nature have not stopped since the book’s publication. Shadow and Bone is YA in content; the romance is slower and less explicit than ACOTAR, but the magnetic antagonist energy is comparable.

#10 — Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Set in the same Grisha world as Shadow and Bone but structured as a heist novel, Six of Crows follows six morally complicated people attempting an impossible job for reasons that are mostly mercenary and occasionally personal. The romantic threads are slower-burning and more understated than ACOTAR’s — Bardugo earns her moments of connection by making the obstacles feel genuinely insurmountable. The ensemble dynamic, which functions as a found-family story wrapped inside a thriller, delivers a version of the same emotional satisfaction as ACOTAR’s Night Court relationships. Often recommended to readers who want the Grisha world without the chosen-one structure.

Crossover Reads: Urban Fantasy with Romantasy Energy

#11 — City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Clary Fray discovers that the world is full of Shadowhunters — part-angel warriors who fight demons — and that she has been kept away from this world her entire life. Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles is one of the most expansive fantasy universes in YA fiction, with multiple series interconnecting across dozens of books. City of Bones is where it begins, and while the content is YA, the world-building ambition and the romantic stakes are significant. Readers who want a large, interconnected magical world with complicated relationships between immortal and mortal characters will find plenty to enjoy here.

#12 — The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

Lara is trained from birth to be a spy and sent to marry the king of the Bridge Kingdom — a marriage designed to deliver intelligence that will enable an invasion. Aren, the king she is sent to betray, is not what she was told to expect. Jensen’s novel is adult romantasy at a moderate heat level, with political scheming that has real consequences and an enemies-to-lovers arc built on genuine deception rather than mere antagonism. The moral complexity of a protagonist whose entire identity is built on betrayal gives the romance a tension that ACOTAR fans who responded to Feyre’s situation in the Night Court will find familiar.

How to Choose Your Next Read

If you want the most direct sequel energy: A Court of Mist and Fury is the obvious choice, and it is better than the original.

If you want the same heat level with a new world: From Blood and Ash or Fourth Wing.

If you want the best fae politics at a lower heat level: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black.

If you want serious epic fantasy with romantic tension: An Ember in the Ashes or Shadow and Bone.

If you want more Sarah J. Maas from the beginning: Throne of Glass, which shows where her world-building ambition started.

Sarah J. Maas Books in Order

For every Sarah J. Maas novel in order — ACOTAR, Throne of Glass, Crescent City — see our Sarah J. Maas Books in Order guide.

For the Best Fantasy Books

For the definitive guide to fantasy fiction — from Tolkien and Le Guin to Brandon Sanderson and George R.R. Martin — see our Best Fantasy Books of All Time list.

Affiliate disclosure: Links to Amazon on this page are affiliate links. We earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This does not influence our editorial recommendations.