Books Like Fourth Wing With a Morally Grey MMC

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

3/5

World

3/5

Darkness

5/5

Craft

3/5

Escalates sharply across the series; the first book is milder than what follows. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content bullying, assault, torture, graphic violence, explicit content

2.The Serpent and the Wings of Night

Carissa Broadbent · Crowns of Nyaxia · book 1 · ongoing

A human raised by the vampire king enters a tournament no human has survived, allied with a competitor who has every reason to kill her at the end of it. Tightly structured, genuinely sad, and better written than most of the shelf it sits on.

Best for Fourth Wing readers who want the tournament structure with sharper prose behind it.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

5/5

World

4/5

Darkness

5/5

Craft

4/5

Several explicit scenes in the back half, unhurried and emotionally weighted. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content graphic violence, gore, death, self-harm, abuse

3.Ninth House

Leigh Bardugo · Alex Stern · book 1 · ongoing

Yale's secret societies practise real magic, and the scholarship student sent to police them can see ghosts without any help. Dark academia with actual teeth — the class rage is as sharp as the horror.

Best for Readers who want dark academia where the darkness is the point, not the aesthetic.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

2/5

Plot

5/5

World

4/5

Darkness

5/5

Craft

5/5

Brief and infrequent. This is a horror novel with a romance somewhere behind it. · Slow burn · No happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content sexual assault, drug use, graphic violence, gore, child abuse

4.The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Carissa Broadbent · Crowns of Nyaxia · book 2 · ongoing

The aftermath of the Kejari, with a kingdom to hold and a relationship that has to be rebuilt from what the first book broke. More political, more explicit, and more willing to sit in grief than its predecessor.

Best for Readers who want a second book that deepens the first rather than repeating it.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◆Spice 5 out of 5, Scorching

Romance

5/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

5/5

Craft

4/5

Explicit and frequent, with the physical relationship carrying much of the reconciliation. · Medium burn · Happy ending

Content graphic violence, grief, gore, explicit content

5.The Wicked King

Holly Black · The Folk of the Air · book 2 of 3 · complete

Jude holds the throne through a bargain with a year on it, and spends the book trying to keep a king who resents her from noticing how little power she actually has. The best-plotted book in modern fae fantasy and the source of one of its most famous endings.

Best for Readers who want scheming and yearning rather than spice.

Spice

◆◇◇◇◇Spice 1 out of 5, A door, closed

Romance

4/5

Plot

5/5

World

5/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

5/5

One extended kiss and a great deal of suppressed everything else. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content violence, manipulation, drowning, betrayal

6.The Cruel Prince

Holly Black · The Folk of the Air · book 1 of 3 · complete

A human girl raised in Faerie by the man who murdered her parents decides that the way to be safe is to become dangerous. The cruelty is real, the politics are genuinely intricate, and the romance is almost entirely composed of hostility.

Best for ACOTAR readers who want the fae court politics without the explicit content.

Spice

◆◇◇◇◇Spice 1 out of 5, A door, closed

Romance

3/5

Plot

5/5

World

5/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

5/5

Kissing and considerable tension. Nothing on the page beyond that. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content violence, bullying, murder of parents, poisoning

7.House of Earth and Blood

Sarah J. Maas · Crescent City · book 1 · ongoing

Urban fantasy with a murder investigation at its centre and a half-fae party girl grieving her found family. Eight hundred pages, a genuine mystery, and a slow burn that takes almost all of them.

Best for ACOTAR readers who want a real plot to hold the romance up.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

5/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit, but late and infrequent relative to the length. Most of the book is restraint. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content grief, graphic violence, drug use, torture

8.House of Sky and Breath

Sarah J. Maas · Crescent City · book 2 · ongoing

The rebellion the first book kept at the edges moves to the centre, and the cost of the previous ending is still being paid. Longer, angrier, and ending on a turn that reframes the entire series.

Best for Crescent City readers, and ACOTAR readers who want the connective tissue.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

5/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit and considerably more frequent than the first book. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content torture, graphic violence, grief, explicit content

9.Kingdom of the Wicked

Kerri Maniscalco · Kingdom of the Wicked · book 1 of 4 · complete

A witch in nineteenth-century Sicily investigates her twin's murder and finds herself working with a Prince of Hell who is exactly as helpful as that sounds. Food, grief and demons, in roughly that order of loving description.

Best for Readers who want a devil love interest and a completed series to go with him.

Spice

◆◆◆◇◇Spice 3 out of 5, Hot

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

4/5

Building tension across the book with explicit content arriving in the sequels. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content murder, gore, mutilation, grief

10.Quicksilver

Callie Hart · The Fae & Alchemy · book 1 · ongoing

A thief from a walled human city is dragged into Yvelia by a fae warrior who despises her, into a court where she is a curiosity and a liability. The most direct answer to what people are asking for when they ask what comes after ACOTAR.

Best for ACOTAR readers who want the same shape with the heat turned up two notches.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◆Spice 5 out of 5, Scorching

Romance

5/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit throughout and unusually frank, with scenes long enough to be structural rather than punctuation. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content graphic violence, sexual content, captivity, gore

11.The Foxglove King

Hannah Whitten · The Nightshade Crown · book 1 of 3 · complete

A woman who can raise the dead is blackmailed into spying on a decadent court by the Sainted King, handled by a prince who despises her. Court intrigue with necromancy, and considerably more interested in religion than most of the genre.

Best for Readers who want court intrigue and necromancy with a slow, hostile romance.

Spice

◆◆◆◇◇Spice 3 out of 5, Hot

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

4/5

A few explicit scenes, unhurried, arriving after a long stretch of hostility. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content death, drug use, gore, religious control

12.A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

Jennifer L. Armentrout · Blood and Ash · book 2 · ongoing

The betrayal at the end of the first book becomes a journey across enemy territory with the person who committed it. Considerably more explicit than its predecessor and much more interested in the world it is crossing.

Best for Anyone who finished the first book angry and needs the next one immediately.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◆Spice 5 out of 5, Scorching

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit throughout, with several extended scenes and very little restraint. · Instalove · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content graphic violence, explicit content, gore, torture

13.A Shadow in the Ember

Jennifer L. Armentrout · Flesh and Fire · book 1 · ongoing

A prequel series set centuries before Blood and Ash, following a woman raised as a Maiden and promised to a god she intends to kill. More explicit than the parent series and more interested in the gods behind it.

Best for Readers who want the spiciest end of the scale with a god as the love interest.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◆Spice 5 out of 5, Scorching

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit throughout and unusually frequent even by the author's standards. · Instalove · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content explicit content, graphic violence, death, grooming

14.Iron Flame

Rebecca Yarros · The Empyrean · book 2 of 5 · ongoing

Second year at Basgiath, with a new commandant who wants her broken and a relationship that has to survive both of them knowing things they cannot say. Slower than the first book for two hundred pages, then considerably less slow.

Best for Fourth Wing readers who wanted the spice turned up and the stakes widened.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

More frequent and more explicit than Fourth Wing, and better integrated into the plot. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content torture, graphic violence, death, war

15.Onyx Storm

Rebecca Yarros · The Empyrean · book 3 of 5 · ongoing

Third year, and the search for an ally who might turn the war moves the story off the continent entirely. Broader in scope than the first two books and more willing to leave Basgiath behind.

Best for Empyrean readers who are already committed and want to know what happens.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit and regular, in line with Iron Flame rather than the first book. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content graphic violence, war, death, grief

16.The Atlas Six

Olivie Blake · The Atlas · book 1 of 3 · complete

Six magicians compete for five places in a secret society guarding the world's lost knowledge, and are told plainly that one of them will not survive the year. Almost entirely conversation, and the conversations are the appeal.

Best for Readers who want dark academia that is mostly clever people arguing.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

2/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

4/5

Some explicit content, sparingly used and more interested in power than pleasure. · Slow burn · No happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content murder, drug use, self-harm, manipulation

17.A Dowry of Blood

S.T. Gibson · Standalone

Dracula's first bride writes a letter to the husband she killed. Short, lyrical, and structured entirely as address — a study of how a controlling love is built one reasonable-seeming concession at a time.

Best for Readers who want dark romantasy with prose that would survive being read aloud.

Spice

◆◆◆◇◇Spice 3 out of 5, Hot

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

3/5

Darkness

5/5

Craft

5/5

Sensual and explicit in places, but written impressionistically rather than in detail. · Medium burn · Happy ending

Content abusive relationship, coercive control, murder, blood

18.For the Wolf

Hannah Whitten · Wilderwood · book 1 of 2 · complete

The second daughter is owed to the Wolf in the Wilderwood, a debt the kingdom has paid for centuries. She goes, and finds a man being slowly eaten by the forest he is holding back. Bloody, botanical and quietly furious.

Best for Readers who loved Uprooted and want something darker in the same forest.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

5/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

4/5

One extended explicit scene. Everything else is proximity and dread. · Slow burn · Happy ending

Content body horror, blood, self-sacrifice, religious control

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

4/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

4/5

Explicit and reasonably frequent, with the physical relationship complicating the politics. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content graphic violence, war, coercion, death

20.The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

V.E. Schwab · Standalone

A woman trades her soul for immortality and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets, until three hundred years later a man in a bookshop says he remembers her. A devil romance disguised as a literary novel, and vice versa.

Best for Readers who want a devil love interest and a standalone they can finish tonight.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

4/5

Plot

3/5

World

3/5

Darkness

4/5

Craft

5/5

Occasional and brief, written more for melancholy than heat. · Slow burn · No happy ending

Content suicidal ideation, loss, manipulation

21.A Court of Mist and Fury

Sarah J. Maas · A Court of Thorns and Roses · book 2 · ongoing

The book that made the series. It takes the ending of the first one and treats the aftermath as the actual story — trauma, a marriage that is wrong, and a court of misfits who are better at loving her than the man who saved her was.

Best for Readers who found the first book slow and were told to keep going. They were right.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

5/5

Plot

4/5

World

5/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit and frequent from the midpoint, including the chapter the entire internet refers to obliquely. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content PTSD, emotional abuse, violence, suicidal ideation

22.A Court of Thorns and Roses

Sarah J. Maas · A Court of Thorns and Roses · book 1 · ongoing

A huntress kills a wolf in the woods and is taken across the wall to answer for it, into a fae court where the punishment turns out to be a life she is not prepared to want. The first half is a slow, quiet Beauty and the Beast; the second half is not.

Best for Anyone who wants to understand what the entire genre has been arguing about since 2015.

Spice

◆◆◆◇◇Spice 3 out of 5, Hot

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

3/5

Two explicit scenes late in the book, written at length. Everything before them is tension. · Slow burn · Happy ending

Content violence, torture, captivity, death of a partner

23.From Blood and Ash

Jennifer L. Armentrout · Blood and Ash · book 1 · ongoing

A girl raised as a holy vessel, forbidden to be touched or spoken to, is guarded by a man who does both. The premise is built entirely around denial, which is a cynical way to construct a romance and an extremely effective one.

Best for Readers who want forbidden romance where the prohibition is enforced by an entire state.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

3/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

3/5

Frequent and explicit from the middle third onward, escalating steadily. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content violence, gore, sexual content, religious control

24.A Discovery of Witches

Deborah Harkness · All Souls · book 1 of 3 · complete

A historian who refuses to use her magic calls up a manuscript in the Bodleian that every creature in Europe has been looking for, and a fifteen-hundred-year-old vampire geneticist arrives to see it. Academic, unhurried, and very interested in wine.

Best for Readers who want a possessive vampire and a completed trilogy at a low spice level.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

4/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

2/5

Craft

4/5

Restrained for most of the first book, with a slow escalation across the trilogy. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content violence, abduction, torture, miscarriage

25.Once Upon a Broken Heart

Stephanie Garber · Once Upon a Broken Heart · book 1 of 3 · complete

A girl who believes in true love strikes three bargains with the Prince of Hearts, an immortal who deals in exactly that kind of belief. Fairytale-styled, deliberately artificial, and very good at making a bargain feel dangerous.

Best for Readers who want a villainous love interest with no spice and maximum yearning.

Spice

◆◇◇◇◇Spice 1 out of 5, A door, closed

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

4/5

Kissing and longing. Closed door throughout. · Slow burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content manipulation, violence, memory loss

26.Belladonna

Adalyn Grace · Belladonna · book 1 of 3 · complete

An orphan who cannot die investigates a series of murders alongside Death himself, who has been watching her since she was a child. Gothic, mannered, and unashamedly indebted to every haunted-house novel of the last two centuries.

Best for Readers who want gothic romance with Death as the love interest and no spice.

Spice

◆◇◇◇◇Spice 1 out of 5, A door, closed

Romance

4/5

Plot

4/5

World

3/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

4/5

Kissing and atmosphere. Nothing explicit. · Slow burn · Happy ending

Content murder, poisoning, grief, death of a parent

27.Bride

Ali Hazelwood · Bride · book 1 · ongoing

A vampire is married off to a werewolf alpha to hold a truce together, and spends the honeymoon investigating a disappearance instead. Paranormal romance with a contemporary voice, and much funnier than the premise suggests.

Best for Readers who want fated mates and a possessive love interest in a standalone.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◇Spice 4 out of 5, Explicit

Romance

5/5

Plot

3/5

World

3/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

4/5

Explicit, frequent in the back half, and written with Hazelwood's usual directness. · Medium burn · Happy ending

Content violence, captivity, blood, child endangerment

28.These Hollow Vows

Lexi Ryan · These Hollow Vows · book 1 of 2 · complete

A thief bargains with the Unseelie prince to steal three artefacts and free her sister, while the Seelie prince offers her a better deal. A love triangle between two fae courts, which is a structure the genre attempts often and lands rarely.

Best for ACOTAR readers who want the fae courts at a much lower spice level.

Spice

◆◆◇◇◇Spice 2 out of 5, Warm

Romance

4/5

Plot

3/5

World

4/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

3/5

Tension-heavy with brief on-page content. Considerably milder than ACOTAR. · Medium burn · Happy ending · Ends on a cliffhanger

Content violence, captivity, addiction

29.Neon Gods

Katee Robert · Dark Olympus · book 1 of 7 · complete

Hades and Persephone relocated to a modern city-state run by thirteen people who have taken the names of gods. Persephone runs from an engagement into the lower city, and strikes a bargain with the man everyone pretends does not exist.

Best for Readers who want the spiciest thing on the shelf and do not need a war to justify it.

Spice

◆◆◆◆◆Spice 5 out of 5, Scorching

Romance

5/5

Plot

2/5

World

2/5

Darkness

3/5

Craft

3/5

Explicit throughout and adventurous with it. The plot exists to move between scenes rather than the reverse. · Instalove · Happy ending

Content explicit content, abusive parent, coercion, violence