Reading recommendations

The best romantasy books, mapped by what you came for: dragons, fae, vampires or comfort

Start with Uprooted for a sharp heroine and a wizard who is worse company than any fae prince, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries for fae with footnotes and low heat, or Sunshine for a vampire and a baker chained in the same room. Below: which of our lists owns each corner of the genre, the Empyrean reading order checked against the publisher, and eight picks the big romantasy lists leave out.

Last verified 7 October 2026.

The map: which list to use

Romantasy splits by what the magic is doing to the romance. Each branch below already has a page of its own; this one connects them and covers the corners none of them reaches.

  • Dragons and war colleges: Books like Fourth Wing, sorted by the rider bond, the brutal academy, Violet and Xaden, and winning on wits rather than strength.
  • After Empyrean book three: Books like Onyx Storm, for readers who have finished all three novels, split into romance, dragons and the institution you cannot trust.
  • Fae courts and bargains, adult only: Books like A Court of Thorns and Roses, checks each pick against its publisher's adult or teen imprint and gives every title a five-level spice number.
  • Romance first, magic optional: The best romance books of 2026, the year's checked romance releases; it found no 2026 romantasy it could confirm against a publisher and an independent list.
  • Fantasy first, romance a side thread: Books like The Name of the Wind, the fantasy end of the map, with every pick tagged finished or ongoing.

The Empyrean reading order

Rebecca Yarros’s series in publication order, which is also the reading order. Dates and ISBNs are the UK Piatkus hardbacks on Hachette’s own pages, read on 7 October 2026.

  1. Fourth Wing (book 1), 2 May 2023. Violet Sorrengail enters Basgiath War College's riders quadrant. Hachette record, ISBN 9780349436999.
  2. Iron Flame (book 2), 7 November 2023. Hachette places it after Fourth Wing and before Onyx Storm. Hachette record, ISBN 9780349437026.
  3. Onyx Storm (book 3), 21 January 2025. Hachette calls it the third book in the series. Hachette record, ISBN 9780349437064.
  4. Threshing Day (after book three), 29 September 2026. Thirteen stories set on one day at Basgiath, not a fourth novel. Hachette says it can be read as an introduction but is best read after Onyx Storm because of spoilers. The ISBN is the limited deluxe hardback; Hachette also lists a standard hardback and an ebook. Hachette record, ISBN 9780349450612.

Book four has no title or publication date on Hachette’s Empyrean listings or on Rebecca Yarros’s own site as of 7 October 2026. The next Empyrean items Hachette lists are a graphic novel of Fourth Wing and a tarot deck, both dated 6 April 2027. We will add the fourth novel here when the publisher lists it, not before.

What Highstreett returned for “The best romantasy books for an adult reader who has already read Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses: cover dragons, fae courts, vampires and gentler low-heat romantasy, and say which picks are young adult and which are adult.”

  • The Serpent and the Wings of Night, Carissa Broadbent (2024)
  • A Deal with the Elf King, Elise Kova (2020)
  • From Blood and Ash, Jennifer L. Armentrout (2020)
  • The Jasmine Throne, Tasha Suri (2021)
  • Six Crimson Cranes, Elizabeth Lim (2021)
  • The City of Brass, S. A. Chakraborty (2017)

See this result · Run 7 October 2026. One request, without re-prompting.

Editor’s verdict: It labelled every pick young adult or adult as asked and found a vampire book and a lower-heat fae bargain, but three of the six are already editorial picks on our Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses pages, the only dragon is a shapeshifter in the one YA title, and nothing cosy came back, so the picks below fill those gaps instead.

If you want dragons and nobody else

The rider-and-dragon branch belongs to the Fourth Wing and Onyx Storm pages above, and this pick appears on neither. It is also on none of the eight romantasy lists we checked.

1. Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton (2003)

Adult · every character is a dragon · no explicit content · short

A dragon patriarch dies, his family eats his body as custom demands, and a greedy son-in-law takes more than his share. A lawsuit and two sisters' marriage prospects follow, written as a Victorian novel of manners in which a maiden dragon's colour gives away her romantic status. Differs: there are no riders and no humans to bond with, the heat is nil, and the comedy is dry satire of Trollope rather than a war story.

Edition source: Tor hardcover, November 2003, 253 pages. ISBN 9780765302649.

If you want fae without ACOTAR's heat

Our A Court of Thorns and Roses page keeps to adult imprints and turned An Enchantment of Ravens away for being published as teen fiction. Here it is on purpose, as the young adult door into the same branch. Emily Wilde is the one well-known pick on this page: it is on one of the eight lists we checked.

2. An Enchantment of Ravens, Margaret Rogerson (2017)

Young adult (publisher age 14+) · fae court · closed door · standalone

Isobel is a seventeen-year-old portrait painter whose clients are fair folk, and she paints a human sorrow into the autumn prince's eyes that his court must not see. He takes her away to answer for it, and the two fall into a love their world forbids. Differs: one short standalone with no sequel, teen-imprint heat and no war, so it suits a reader who wanted the bargain and the danger rather than the scale of Prythian.

Edition source: Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster) US hardcover, September 2017, 304 pages; age 14 and up. ISBN 9781481497589.

3. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (2023)

Adult · cosy scholarly fae · slow burn, low heat · told as a field journal

A prickly Cambridge scholar travels to a remote northern village to study its hidden folk, and her charming academic rival follows her there with secrets of his own. The diary form, the footnotes and the dry humour carry the romance slowly. Differs: the danger is folkloric rather than political, the heat stays low, and it opens a series, so the payoff is spread across more than one book.

Edition source: Orbit UK paperback, 5 October 2023; first published in January 2023. ISBN 9780356519142.

If you want vampires and the gothic

No page of ours owns this branch: the vampire books we recommend sit on the Fourth Wing and ACOTAR pages. This pick is on none of the eight lists checked.

4. Sunshine, Robin McKinley (2003)

First published as an adult novel, now sold for 14 and up · vampire · romance never quite declared

Rae Seddon bakes cinnamon rolls in her stepfather's coffeehouse until vampires abduct her and chain her in an abandoned mansion beside another prisoner, a vampire. What she does to survive the night, and what she owes him afterwards, drives the rest. Differs: the attraction is circled rather than consummated, the narrator digresses, and readers who need a declared couple by the end should know it stays ambiguous.

Edition source: Speak (Penguin Random House) US paperback, 29 April 2010, 416 pages, age 14 and up; Berkley first published it as an adult hardcover in October 2003. ISBN 9780142411100.

If you want low stakes and a happy island

Cosy romantasy has no page of its own here yet. This pick is on none of the eight lists checked.

5. The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst (2024)

Adult · cosy · very low heat · gentle pace

When revolution burns the Great Library, the librarian Kiela escapes with forbidden spellbooks and a sentient spider plant to the island where she grew up, and starts selling small spells and jam to the neighbours. The romance with a kind islander is the gentlest on this page. Differs: there is no villain at the door for long stretches, the plot is about building a life, and readers who came for Fourth Wing's danger will find almost none.

Edition source: Tor (Pan Macmillan) UK paperback, 5 June 2025, 400 pages; first published in 2024. ISBN 9781035042340.

If you want the books that were romantasy before the word

Romantic fantasy was shelved as fantasy for decades before BookTok named it. None of these three is on any of the eight lists checked, which is the point of this section.

6. Archangel, Sharon Shinn (1996)

Adult · angels · forced match, slow thaw · first of a series

To become Archangel, Gabriel must marry the woman his god names for him, and she turns out to be Rachel, a former slave with no wish to sing beside him. Their resentment, and the music their world runs on, carry the romance. Differs: it is older in rhythm and religious in texture, the heat is low, and the world's late twist is science fiction rather than fantasy.

Edition source: HarperCollins UK paperback, 18 November 1996, 352 pages; Ace first published it in the US in 1996. ISBN 9780006482574.

7. Daughter of the Forest, Juliet Marillier (1999)

Adult · Irish legend retold · very slow romance · content warning

Sorcha's six brothers are turned into swans, and she can break the spell only by weaving shirts from a stinging plant without speaking a word. Her silence carries her across the sea and into the care of a Briton her family counts as an enemy. Differs: the love story arrives late and quietly, and the book includes a rape of the heroine early on, which readers coming from lighter romantasy should know before starting.

Edition source: Tor US hardcover, 2000, 400 pages; first published in Australia by Macmillan in 1999. ISBN 9780312848798.

8. Uprooted, Naomi Novik (2015)

Adult · Polish folklore · grumpy wizard, sharp heroine · standalone

Every ten years the wizard called the Dragon takes a girl from Agnieszka's valley to his tower, and this time he takes her. The corrupted Wood beyond the valley is the real enemy, and her magic, messy where his is exact, is what the two have to learn to combine. Differs: there is no dragon despite the name, the romance is a thread in a larger war against the Wood, and it is one complete book.

Edition source: Tor (Pan Macmillan) UK paperback, 2 October 2025, 480 pages; first published in 2015. ISBN 9781035076208.

The honest bit

Two axes decide whether a romantasy book suits you: how explicit it is, and whether it was published for adults or teens. Lists that blend them are where readers get mis-sold. The eight picks here run from no heat (Tooth and Claw, The Spellshop) through closed-door young adult (An Enchantment of Ravens) to adult books whose romance is slow or partial (Archangel, Uprooted, Sunshine). None is as explicit as A Court of Mist and Fury; the ACOTAR page is the place for that end.

The most likely mis-sell is Daughter of the Forest. It is the most loved of the older books, but it contains sexual violence and makes you wait a long time for the love story. Sunshine is the second: readers expecting a declared couple will not get one.

The recorded search's 2024 beside The Serpent and the Wings of Night is left as returned; that is an edition year, and the novel first appeared in 2022. Our resolver also matched Onyx Storm to a 2018 record and Iron Flame to a non-English edition, so the reading order above uses Hachette's own records rather than the resolver.

Questions

What order should I read the Empyrean books in?

Fourth Wing (2 May 2023), Iron Flame (7 November 2023), then Onyx Storm (21 January 2025), the UK hardback dates on Hachette's pages. Threshing Day, a collection of thirteen stories published on 29 September 2026, is best read after Onyx Storm because it contains spoilers.

Is Threshing Day Empyrean book four?

No. Hachette presents it as a story collection set on one day at Basgiath, not a numbered novel. As of 7 October 2026 neither Hachette's Empyrean listings nor Rebecca Yarros's own site gives a title or a date for a fourth novel.

Which romantasy books are low on spice?

On this page, Tooth and Claw and The Spellshop have essentially none, An Enchantment of Ravens is closed door and young adult, and Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is a slow burn with low heat. For an explicit numbered scale, use the spice levels on our A Court of Thorns and Roses page.

Book search takes the two axes this page sorts by: say how much heat you want and whether young adult is fine, and name the creature.

Find romantasy at your heat level

How the comparison was bounded

On 7 October 2026 we read the named picks on these eight romantasy lists. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries appears on Hello!’s; none of the other seven picks appears on any of them. Marie Claire’s list could not be read in full and is not counted. This is a check of these lists, not of the whole field.