# Books Like ACOTAR With Dragons Dragons with personalities, bonded riders, and the specific pleasure of a creature that chooses its person. Everything below pairs that with the romance and stakes that make ACOTAR worth finishing. ## All 9 books ### 1. Dragonflight **Anne McCaffrey** · Dragonriders of Pern, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/dragonflight](https://houseofareader.com/books/dragonflight) The book that invented the telepathically bonded dragon rider, and therefore most of this list. A kitchen drudge turns out to be the last of a noble line and impresses the only queen dragon left on a planet that has forgotten what it is defending against. - Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Closed door, and written in 1968 — the one relevant scene has aged badly and readers should know that before starting. - Romance prominence: 3/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 5/5 - Darkness: 3/5 - Writing craft: 4/5 - Burn: medium - Tropes: fated-mates, chosen-one, enemies-to-lovers, found-family - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Pern, a colony world under threat from spores that fall from the sky - POV: third person, dual - Ending: happy ever after - Audience: adult - Content warnings: dubious consent, period-typical sexism, violence - Best for: Readers who want the original dragon-rider bond that every later book is answering. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 2. A Day of Fallen Night **Samantha Shannon** · The Roots of Chaos, book 2 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-day-of-fallen-night](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-day-of-fallen-night) A prequel to Priory set five centuries earlier, following four women as the wyrms wake. Longer, sadder and better constructed than the book it precedes, and readable first without losing anything. - Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Occasional and brief. The relationships matter far more than the scenes do. - Romance prominence: 3/5 - Plot: 5/5 - Worldbuilding: 5/5 - Darkness: 4/5 - Writing craft: 5/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: found-family, forbidden-romance, slow-burn, chosen-one - Creatures: dragons, witches, humans - Setting: The same two hemispheres, five hundred years earlier - POV: third person, dual - Ending: happy ever after - Audience: adult - Content warnings: childbirth, plague, war, grief, death of a child - Best for: Readers who want the most ambitious dragon worldbuilding currently in print. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 3. The Priory of the Orange Tree **Samantha Shannon** · The Roots of Chaos, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree) Eight hundred pages of dragon politics across two hemispheres that disagree about whether dragons are gods or vermin. A standalone in the sense that it resolves completely, with a slow sapphic romance threaded through the middle of it. - Spice: 2/5 — Warm. One or two brief scenes. The romance is understated relative to the book's length. - Romance prominence: 3/5 - Plot: 5/5 - Worldbuilding: 5/5 - Darkness: 3/5 - Writing craft: 5/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: slow-burn, forbidden-romance, chosen-one, found-family - Creatures: dragons, witches, humans - Setting: Two continents divided by a thousand years of religious disagreement - POV: third person, dual - Ending: happy ever after - Audience: adult - Content warnings: violence, plague, death, war - Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want dragons with far more worldbuilding and far less spice. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 4. His Majesty's Dragon **Naomi Novik** · Temeraire, book 1 of 9 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/his-majestys-dragon](https://houseofareader.com/books/his-majestys-dragon) The Napoleonic Wars, fought with an air force of dragons. A naval captain is bonded to a hatchling against his every intention and discovers that the dragon is better company than the navy was. The friendship is the love story. - Spice: 0/5 — Closed to the world. No romantic or sexual content. The central relationship is between a man and his dragon. - Romance prominence: 1/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 5/5 - Darkness: 2/5 - Writing craft: 5/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: found-family, forced-proximity - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Britain and the Channel during the Napoleonic Wars - POV: third person - Ending: happy ever after - Audience: adult - Content warnings: war, animal endangerment, violence - Best for: Readers who want the best dragon characterisation in the genre and no romance. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 5. Fourth Wing **Rebecca Yarros** · The Empyrean, book 1 of 5 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/fourth-wing](https://houseofareader.com/books/fourth-wing) A scribe's daughter with a body that dislocates on principle is forced into a war college where cadets die on the first bridge and the dragons choose who lives. The rival trying to kill her turns out to have been the one keeping her alive. - Spice: 3/5 — Hot. Three explicit scenes in five hundred pages, detailed but not frequent. The tension is doing most of the work. - Romance prominence: 4/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 4/5 - Darkness: 3/5 - Writing craft: 3/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, academy, touch-her-and-die, slow-burn, he-falls-first - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Basgiath War College, in a kingdom under permanent siege - POV: first person - Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger - Audience: adult - Content warnings: graphic violence, death, chronic illness, war - Best for: Readers who want competition and banter carrying as much weight as the romance. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 6. Iron Flame **Rebecca Yarros** · The Empyrean, book 2 of 5 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/iron-flame](https://houseofareader.com/books/iron-flame) 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. - Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. More frequent and more explicit than Fourth Wing, and better integrated into the plot. - Romance prominence: 4/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 4/5 - Darkness: 4/5 - Writing craft: 3/5 - Burn: medium - Tropes: academy, touch-her-and-die, forbidden-romance, found-family - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Basgiath War College and the front lines beyond it - POV: first and third person, dual - Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger - Audience: adult - Content warnings: torture, graphic violence, death, war - Best for: Fourth Wing readers who wanted the spice turned up and the stakes widened. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 7. Onyx Storm **Rebecca Yarros** · The Empyrean, book 3 of 5 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/onyx-storm](https://houseofareader.com/books/onyx-storm) 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. - Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. Explicit and regular, in line with Iron Flame rather than the first book. - Romance prominence: 4/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 4/5 - Darkness: 4/5 - Writing craft: 3/5 - Burn: medium - Tropes: academy, touch-her-and-die, found-family, forbidden-romance - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Beyond Navarre, across the islands and the front - POV: first and third person, dual - Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger - Audience: adult - Content warnings: graphic violence, war, death, grief - Best for: Empyrean readers who are already committed and want to know what happens. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 8. Fireborne **Rosaria Munda** · The Aurelian Cycle, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/fireborne](https://houseofareader.com/books/fireborne) After a revolution overthrows the dragonlords, an orphan and the surviving son of the old regime compete to lead the new order's dragon riders. A political novel about whether a just revolution stays just, with dragons. - Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Kissing at most. The tension between the leads is ideological before it is romantic. - Romance prominence: 2/5 - Plot: 5/5 - Worldbuilding: 4/5 - Darkness: 4/5 - Writing craft: 4/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: academy, enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, forbidden-romance - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Callipolis, a republic built on the ashes of a dragonlord dynasty - POV: first person, dual - Ending: no happy ending, ends on a cliffhanger - Audience: ya - Content warnings: famine, execution, war, class violence - Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the war college with real politics behind it. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 ### 9. Eragon **Christopher Paolini** · The Inheritance Cycle, book 1 of 4 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/eragon](https://houseofareader.com/books/eragon) A farm boy finds a dragon egg and becomes the last of the Riders. Unashamedly traditional epic fantasy, written when the author was fifteen, and still the book most people mean when they say they want dragons. - Spice: 0/5 — Closed to the world. No romantic content of any kind on the page. This is a quest novel. - Romance prominence: 1/5 - Plot: 4/5 - Worldbuilding: 4/5 - Darkness: 2/5 - Writing craft: 3/5 - Burn: slow - Tropes: chosen-one, found-family - Creatures: dragons, humans - Setting: Alagaësia, under an empire founded by a fallen Rider - POV: third person - Ending: happy ever after - Audience: ya - Content warnings: violence, war, death of a guardian - Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the dragon bond with no romance at all. - Last verified: 2026-08-28 --- Ratings are editorial judgements applied against a published scale at https://houseofareader.com/lessons/spice, not aggregated reader scores. Editorial policy: https://houseofareader.com/lessons/how-we-choose. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements.