By Alex, founder of Highstreett
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Books like Fourth Wing, including the picks that match Violet winning on wits rather than strength
Book 4 of the Empyrean series has no release date, so the wait is real. The three best follow-ups right now are A Promise of Fire (the enemies-to-lovers tension), Red Rising (the lethal academy) and To Shape a Dragon’s Breath (the dragon bond). Full picks below, sorted by which part of Fourth Wing you loved.
Not a dragon person? Four picks with no dragons at all · Rebecca Yarros’s books without dragons
Most “books like Fourth Wing” lists throw fifteen romantasy titles at you and hope one sticks. This one works backwards: it splits Fourth Wing into the specific things readers loved, then matches each one separately, with at least one well-known comp and at least one genuinely under-listed pick per section (the Rebecca Yarros section aside). The under-listed picks were checked against the major rival lists: if it appears on them, it isn’t called hidden here. Every title is a real, in-print book you can buy in the UK, and each one links to Bookshop.org. No spoilers for anything, including Fourth Wing itself.
One note on pacing: unputdownable isn’t a shelf you can browse, it’s a quality. So instead of a pacing section, every pick carries a pace tag, and where a book trades speed for something else, that’s said plainly before you buy it.
What Highstreett returned for “books like Fourth Wing”
- The Poppy War: A Novel, R. F. Kuang
- Eragon, Christopher Paolini (2000)
- From Blood and Ash, Jennifer L. Armentrout (2020)
- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
- A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas
- The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon
See this result · run 3 September 2026
Editor’s verdict: Two are already on this page. The four it added are the well-known romantasy comps every Fourth Wing list opens with, and it reached nothing for the section on Violet winning through chronic illness and wits rather than strength.
How this list was made: it starts from the Highstreett book search results above, run 3 September 2026 and shown as they came back. Alex, founder of Highstreett, chose the final list.
If you loved the rider and dragon bond
1. Fireborne, Rosaria Munda (2019)
well-known comp · YA · low spice · measured, political pace
Competitive testing into a dragonriding elite, a rider and dragon bond at the story's centre, rival cadets circling the top spot. Differs: muted slow-burn romance and a slower, more political engine. The bond here is emotional and ideological, not spicy.
2. To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (2023)
under-listed pick · crossover · very low spice · cosy, slow pace
A human and dragon bond formed by an outsider, who then has to survive a hostile, rule-bound academy on her wits alone. Differs: cosy, cerebral and built around a colonial critique, the near-opposite of Fourth Wing's adrenaline. The romance is a quiet sapphic subplot, not the spine.
3. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey (1968)
the trope's origin · adult · no spice · classic pace
Where the telepathic dragon partnership began. If the bond is all you want and pace is negotiable, start here. Differs: fifty years older in style, no academy, romance of its era.
4. His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (2006)
well-known in fantasy · adult · no spice · steady pace
Dragon and rider as true partners in the Napoleonic Wars, the bond itself done better than almost anywhere in romantasy. Differs: naval historical fantasy, zero romance.
5. The Serpent and the Wings of Night, Carissa Broadbent (2022)
well-known comp · adult romantasy · high spice · deadly, propulsive pace
A human girl enters a lethal tournament alongside the vampire who may be her best chance of surviving it. Differs: vampires instead of dragons, a single tournament instead of an academy, and a darker romantic bargain.
If you loved the brutal academy
6. Red Rising, Pierce Brown (2014)
well-known comp · adult crossover · low spice · propulsive pace
A murderous training crucible where students kill and scheme to advance. The purest survive-the-school analogue, with the same underdog-outsmarts-the-system spine. Differs: science fiction, not fantasy, heavier on-page violence, minor romance, no dragons.
7. The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (2018)
well-known comp · adult, grimdark · negligible romance · fast, then harrowing
A poor, underestimated girl claws into an elite military academy on raw wits as war closes in around the training. Differs: very dark, with real atrocity content in the back half. Tonally far heavier than Fourth Wing.
8. Vita Nostra, Marina and Sergey Dyachenko (2007, English translation 2018)
under-listed pick · adult · no romance · slow, cerebral
A coercive institute where failure carries lethal stakes and the training itself may unmake you. The survive-the-training dread of Basgiath, distilled to its bones. Differs: literary, romance-free, philosophical and bleak, with zero commercial propulsion. Recommended for the dread, not the escapism.
9. A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik (2020)
well-known comp · adult crossover · medium spice · brisk, dangerous pace
A lethal school where the monsters are inside the walls and every student has to calculate exactly who might save them. Differs: darkly funny, less military and more magically claustrophobic, with a heroine who is feared for what she might become.
10. The Atlas Six, Olivie Blake (2020)
under-listed pick · adult fantasy · medium spice · slow-burn, cerebral pace
Six candidates compete for five places in an elite magical society, turning selection into a pressure cooker of alliances and betrayal. Differs: secret-society politics over combat training, a more adult and measured rhythm, and no dragons.
If you loved Violet and Xaden
11. The Cruel Prince, Holly Black (2018)
well-known comp · YA · tension over heat · brisk pace
Barbed enemies-to-lovers between a powerless outsider and a cruel, high-status antagonist she has to out-scheme to survive. Differs: YA and closed-door, and the arena is fae court intrigue rather than a battlefield.
12. A Promise of Fire, Amanda Bouchet (2016)
under-listed pick · adult · medium to high spice · propulsive, banter-driven
Captor and captive enemies-to-lovers with relentless needling tension and a warlord love interest who initially wants to weaponise her. Differs: the captor-turned-lover setup carries baggage some readers avoid, and it's a Greek-myth road trip, so no academy and no dragon. Worth knowing: the cold, dangerous partner secretly on your side is the Xaden archetype, and this delivers it directly.
13. The Bridge Kingdom, Danielle L. Jensen (2019)
well-known comp · adult romantasy · medium spice · political, propulsive pace
An enemy king, a marriage built on espionage and a heroine forced to decide whether the person she was sent to destroy is actually the one person she can trust. Differs: political fantasy rather than a school story, with the romance carrying more of the plot.
14. The Hurricane Wars, Thea Guanzon (2023)
under-listed pick · adult romantasy · high spice · war-driven pace
A soldier and the enemy commander who captures her are pushed into an alliance while a much larger war closes in. Differs: elemental magic and a slower world-building runway, but the hostile attraction and dangerous, morally complicated partner are right on the Xaden axis.
If you loved that Violet wins on wits, not strength
This is the section every other list skips. Violet is chronically ill and survives Basgiath by being smarter, not stronger. Genuine disability representation paired with a wits-based underdog is a small field, so here are two strong picks rather than three padded ones.
15. Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo (2015)
well-known comp · crossover · low spice · propulsive pace
Kaz Brekker is a cane-using protagonist in constant pain who wins entirely on cunning and turns being underestimated into a weapon. The closest mirror of Violet's illness-plus-wits survival, and Bardugo wrote him from her own experience with a degenerative condition, so the representation isn't decorative. Differs: ensemble heist, slow-subplot romance, no dragons, no training arc.
16. Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao (2021)
under-listed pick · YA · low to medium spice · relentless pace
A disabled heroine, never magically cured, who survives a lethal system on wits and fury, plus a psychic pilot-pair bond that structurally echoes the rider and dragon link. It rarely makes Fourth Wing lists only because readers file mecha separately from dragons. Differs: science fiction, a romantic-polyamorous bond, and a tone that runs grim and rage-forward rather than swoony.
If you loved Basgiath but could do without the dragons
For readers who came for the trials, the danger and the tension, and found the dragons the least interesting part. None of these four has a dragon in it.
17. Powerless, Lauren Roberts (2023)
well-known comp · YA · low spice · fast, trial-to-trial pace
Paedyn is an Ordinary with no power at all, hiding among the Elites by passing as a Psychic, when she saves a prince and is thrown into the Purging Trials. The weakest person in the arena surviving by reading people is the closest no-dragon match for Violet's first year. Differs: YA, a royal competition rather than a war college, and the romance is with a prince who could expose her.
UK edition: Simon & Schuster paperback, ISBN 9781398529489, 6 July 2023, 528 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within three to five days (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
18. Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas (2012)
well-known comp · YA crossover · low spice · steady, then fast
An assassin is brought out of prison to compete against twenty-three murderers, thieves and warriors to become the king's champion, and her rivals start dying one by one. It is the elimination-competition half of Fourth Wing. Differs: the heroine is already the deadliest person in the room, the opposite of Violet's underdog start, and the series only grows into a war epic in later books.
UK edition: Bloomsbury paperback, ISBN 9781526635297, 14 February 2023, 432 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within six days (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
19. Legendborn, Tracy Deonn (2020)
under-listed pick · YA · low spice · measured, mystery-led pace
After her mother's death, sixteen-year-old Bree joins a residential programme on a university campus, sees a magical attack on her first night and sets out to infiltrate the secret society that hunts the creatures, the descendants of King Arthur's knights. The society's trials and the secrets the institution keeps are the Basgiath parts. Differs: grief and the truth about her mother drive it, not war, and the romance is YA.
UK edition: Simon & Schuster paperback, ISBN 9781398501874, 15 September 2020, 512 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within one to two days (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
20. Blood Over Bright Haven, M. L. Wang (UK edition 2024)
under-listed pick · adult · very low spice · slow build, dark turn
Sciona becomes the first woman admitted to the High Magistry of her city's magic university and is undermined at every turn, down to being given a janitor, Thomil, instead of a lab assistant. Two outsiders working out what the institution is hiding is the Violet-and-Xaden engine with the romance taken out. Differs: dark academia rather than military training, no dragons and very little romance, and a much darker second half.
UK edition: Penguin (Cornerstone) paperback, ISBN 9781804950760, 25 September 2025, 448 pages; £10.99, usually dispatched within one to two days. The 2024 hardback was shown as unavailable (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
If you want more Rebecca Yarros while you wait
Yarros wrote contemporary romance before the Empyrean books, much of it about soldiers and military families. These two are her voice in a different key. For Threshing Day, the new Basgiath book, see the questions at the end.
21. The Last Letter, Rebecca Yarros (2019)
same author, no fantasy · adult contemporary romance · romance-led · slow-burn, heavy
Beckett, a soldier, keeps his dying best friend's last request: leave the army and go to Telluride to look after Ryan's sister Ella, who is raising twins alone. It shares Fourth Wing's soldiers, grief and loyalty to the dead. Differs: no magic and no academy, a small mountain town, and a story built to make you cry rather than keep you up at night.
UK edition: Transworld paperback, ISBN 9781804992425, 13 August 2026, 480 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within one to two days (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
22. The Things We Leave Unfinished, Rebecca Yarros (2021)
same author, no fantasy · adult contemporary romance · romance-led · dual timeline, steady pace
Georgia Stanton's late grandmother, a famous romance author, left her last book unfinished, and Georgia has to work with a novelist she can't stand to finish it. The book turns out to be her grandmother's own Second World War love story with a pilot. Enemies-to-lovers and flyers at war, from the same pen. Differs: realist historical fiction and a present-day romance, with no fantasy at all.
UK edition: Transworld paperback, ISBN 9781804992326, 1 January 2026, 448 pages; £9.99, usually dispatched within one to two days. The 2021 Entangled paperback was shown as unavailable (Foyles, 14 October 2026).
Which UK edition of Fourth Wing should you get?
The story is the same in each format. The useful difference is whether you want the original hardback, the later paperback or the ebook, and the ISBN matters because the UK editions have different covers and prices.
| UK edition | ISBN | Published | What is different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 9780349436999 | 2 May 2023 | Original hardback edition |
| Ebook | 9780349436982 | 2 May 2023 | Digital text edition |
| Paperback | 9780349437019 | 26 March 2024 | Current UK paperback edition |
Edition data checked against Little, Brown’s UK catalogue on 10 September 2026.
The honest bit
Two things other lists won’t tell you. First, if what you loved was purely the can’t-stop-reading feeling, the fastest books here are Red Rising, A Promise of Fire and Six of Crows, and the ones that will not scratch that itch are Vita Nostra and To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, which are recommended for other reasons. Second, no book on this list is Fourth Wing. Each one matches a piece of it and honestly differs on the rest, and the differences are stated on every pick so you can choose with your eyes open.
Highstreett is a personalised search engine for places and books. Describe what you want in plain English and, once you're signed in, it remembers your taste, your saved dietary needs, allergies and religious requirements, and what you've liked before.
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Tell it what you loved about Fourth Wing
The Empyrean reading order, Threshing Day included, sits with the rest of the genre on our map of the best romantasy books.
Questions
When is Fourth Wing book 4 out?
There's no release date: when we checked UK listings on 14 October 2026, no fourth Empyrean novel was listed. Three novels are out: Fourth Wing, Iron Flame and Onyx Storm. Threshing Day, a shorter book set on the day Basgiath's cadets try to bond a dragon and following thirteen of the series' characters, came out in the UK as a deluxe hardback on 29 September 2026 and a standard hardback on 13 October 2026.
What should I read after Fourth Wing if I didn't care about the dragons?
Try the no-dragons section: Powerless and Throne of Glass keep the deadly competition, Legendborn keeps the secret institution and its trials, and Blood Over Bright Haven keeps the outsiders working out what the academy is hiding. None of the four has a dragon in it.
Has Rebecca Yarros written books that aren't fantasy?
Yes. Before the Empyrean series she wrote contemporary romance, much of it about soldiers and military families. The Last Letter (2019) and The Things We Leave Unfinished (2021) are both in print as UK paperbacks from Transworld, and both are in the section above.
What should I read after Fourth Wing if I loved the dragons but not the romance?
Go straight to the bond section above: His Majesty's Dragon and Dragonflight are dragon and rider partnership stories with little to no romance, and Fireborne keeps the riders and the academy while keeping the romance muted.
Are there books like Fourth Wing with real disability representation?
Yes, and it's the most under-served part of the question. Six of Crows and Iron Widow both centre disabled protagonists who win on wits, written without a magical cure. See the final section.