# Enemies-to-Lovers Books Like ACOTAR

Every book here delivers genuine enemies to lovers — real cause for hostility, not a misunderstanding cleared up in chapter three — alongside the things that make ACOTAR work. Sorted so the ones where the animosity actually costs something come first.

## All 29 books

### 1. Quicksilver

**Callie Hart** · The Fae & Alchemy, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/quicksilver](https://houseofareader.com/books/quicksilver)

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.

- Spice: 5/5 — Scorching. Explicit throughout and unusually frank, with scenes long enough to be structural rather than punctuation.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fated-mates, touch-her-and-die, morally-grey-mmc, forced-proximity, one-bed
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: Yvelia, a fae kingdom beyond a wall that keeps humans out
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: graphic violence, sexual content, captivity, gore
- Best for: ACOTAR readers who want the same shape with the heat turned up two notches.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 2. A Court of Thorns and Roses

**Sarah J. Maas** · A Court of Thorns and Roses, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses)

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.

- Spice: 3/5 — Hot. Two explicit scenes late in the book, written at length. Everything before them is tension.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance, touch-her-and-die, found-family
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: Prythian, a fae realm divided into seasonal courts
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: violence, torture, captivity, death of a partner
- Best for: Anyone who wants to understand what the entire genre has been arguing about since 2015.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 3. Six of Crows

**Leigh Bardugo** · Six of Crows, book 1 of 2 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/six-of-crows](https://houseofareader.com/books/six-of-crows)

Six criminals attempt an impossible prison break for an impossible fee. A heist novel with six perspectives, four romances handled almost entirely through restraint, and the best-constructed plot on this list.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. No explicit content at all. One of the romances turns on a character who cannot bear to be touched, and the book respects that completely.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: found-family, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, touch-starved, he-falls-first
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: Ketterdam, a mercantile city built on vice
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, child trafficking, addiction, torture
- Best for: Readers who want found family and yearning with no spice whatsoever.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 4. Uprooted

**Naomi Novik** · Standalone · [https://houseofareader.com/books/uprooted](https://houseofareader.com/books/uprooted)

A wizard takes one village girl every ten years, and this time takes the wrong one. Built on Polish folklore rather than the usual fae tradition, with a genuinely frightening forest and a magic system that feels like cooking.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. One explicit scene, brief and late. The rest is antagonism and proximity.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, slow-burn, found-family
- Creatures: witches, humans
- Setting: A valley beside the Wood, in a folkloric Poland
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: body horror, violence, war
- Best for: ACOTAR readers who want the same premise handled by a much stronger prose stylist.
- 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. The Night Circus

**Erin Morgenstern** · Standalone · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-night-circus](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-night-circus)

Two magicians are bound as children into a contest neither understands, played out through a circus that appears without warning and opens only at night. Atmosphere is the whole point; the plot is a rumour the book is happy to leave you with.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Closed door. The sensuality is entirely in the descriptions of the circus.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 2/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: forbidden-romance, slow-burn, fated-mates, enemies-to-lovers
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: Le Cirque des Rêves, touring the world at the turn of the century
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: child endangerment, suicide, emotional neglect
- Best for: Readers who want atmosphere above everything and do not need the plot to arrive.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 7. Throne of Glass

**Sarah J. Maas** · Throne of Glass, book 1 of 8 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/throne-of-glass](https://houseofareader.com/books/throne-of-glass)

An eighteen-year-old assassin is pulled out of a salt mine to compete for the post of King's Champion. The first book is a competition novel with a love triangle; the series it turns into over eight books is something considerably larger.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Kissing in the first book. The series becomes explicit from around the fourth.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: academy, enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, found-family, chosen-one
- Creatures: fae, witches, humans
- Setting: The glass castle of Rifthold, in a kingdom that has outlawed magic
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: slavery, violence, torture, death
- Best for: Readers who want a completed eight-book saga to disappear into.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 8. The Atlas Six

**Olivie Blake** · The Atlas, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-atlas-six](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-atlas-six)

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.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Some explicit content, sparingly used and more interested in power than pleasure.
- Romance prominence: 2/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: academy, morally-grey-mmc, enemies-to-lovers, found-family
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: The Alexandrian Society, in a house outside time
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: no happy ending, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: murder, drug use, self-harm, manipulation
- Best for: Readers who want dark academia that is mostly clever people arguing.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 9. Zodiac Academy: The Awakening

**Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti** · Zodiac Academy, book 1 of 9 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/zodiac-academy](https://houseofareader.com/books/zodiac-academy)

Twin sisters discover they are fae heirs and are enrolled in an academy where four heirs to the throne intend to break them. Genuinely brutal bullying-to-lovers across a very long completed series, with a reverse-harem structure.

- Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. Escalates sharply across the series; the first book is milder than what follows.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 3/5
- Darkness: 5/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, academy, morally-grey-mmc, touch-her-and-die, slow-burn
- Creatures: fae, shifters
- Setting: Zodiac Academy, a fae school ordered by star sign
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: bullying, assault, torture, graphic violence, explicit content
- Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the academy structure and a series they can finish.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 10. 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

### 11. The Wicked King

**Holly Black** · The Folk of the Air, book 2 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-wicked-king](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-wicked-king)

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.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. One extended kiss and a great deal of suppressed everything else.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, forbidden-romance, morally-grey-mmc, he-falls-first
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: Elfhame, from the throne room
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, manipulation, drowning, betrayal
- Best for: Readers who want scheming and yearning rather than spice.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 12. Divine Rivals

**Rebecca Ross** · Letters of Enchantment, book 1 of 2 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/divine-rivals](https://houseofareader.com/books/divine-rivals)

Two rival journalists write to each other through an enchanted typewriter without knowing who is on the other end, while a war between gods swallows the countryside. Old-fashioned in the best sense, and the letters are genuinely lovely.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Closed door throughout. The intimacy is entirely in the correspondence.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, forbidden-romance, he-falls-first
- Creatures: gods, humans
- Setting: A war-torn country modelled on the 1920s
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: war, death, injury, alcoholism
- Best for: Readers who want rivals-to-lovers with no spice and prose worth slowing down for.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 13. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

**Heather Fawcett** · Emily Wilde, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/emily-wildes-encyclopaedia-of-faeries](https://houseofareader.com/books/emily-wildes-encyclopaedia-of-faeries)

A prickly Cambridge academic goes to a frozen village to finish her field guide to the fae, and her insufferably charming colleague follows her there. Written as her journal, which makes the romance funnier and considerably more painful.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Closed door entirely. The most explicit thing in it is a dance.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, academy, forced-proximity, he-falls-first
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: Hrafnsvik, a village at the edge of the fae realms
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: peril, child abduction, cold-weather injury
- Best for: ACOTAR readers who want the fae bargains with wit instead of spice.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 14. Spinning Silver

**Naomi Novik** · Standalone · [https://houseofareader.com/books/spinning-silver](https://houseofareader.com/books/spinning-silver)

A moneylender's daughter turns silver into gold well enough to attract the attention of the winter king, in a Rumpelstiltskin retelling with three narrators and a great deal to say about debt. Colder and cleverer than Uprooted.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Almost entirely closed-door. The romance is negotiated rather than consummated on the page.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, slow-burn, fake-dating
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: Lithvas, a folkloric Eastern Europe under permanent winter
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: antisemitism, violence, forced marriage
- Best for: Readers who want a fae bargain plot with essentially no spice and exceptional writing.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 15. The Cruel Prince

**Holly Black** · The Folk of the Air, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-cruel-prince](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-cruel-prince)

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.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Kissing and considerable tension. Nothing on the page beyond that.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance, slow-burn, morally-grey-mmc, he-falls-first
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: The High Court of Elfhame
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, bullying, murder of parents, poisoning
- Best for: ACOTAR readers who want the fae court politics without the explicit content.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 16. The Bridge Kingdom

**Danielle L. Jensen** · The Bridge Kingdom, book 1 of 4 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-bridge-kingdom](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-bridge-kingdom)

A princess is trained from childhood as a weapon and married to an enemy king she is meant to destroy from inside his own palace. She is very good at the job, and the problem is that he is not what she was told.

- Spice: 3/5 — Hot. Several explicit scenes, well spaced and used to mark the shifts in her loyalty.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating, forbidden-romance, slow-burn, he-falls-first
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: Ithicana, a kingdom of bridges between warring continents
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: violence, abusive father, war, betrayal
- Best for: Readers who want a marriage-of-convenience spy plot and a series that is finished.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 17. The Serpent and the Wings of Night

**Carissa Broadbent** · Crowns of Nyaxia, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night)

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.

- Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. Several explicit scenes in the back half, unhurried and emotionally weighted.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 5/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn, forced-proximity, morally-grey-mmc, touch-starved
- Creatures: vampires, humans, gods
- Setting: The vampire kingdom of Obitraes and the trial of the Kejari
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: graphic violence, gore, death, self-harm, abuse
- Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the tournament structure with sharper prose behind it.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 18. Kingdom of the Wicked

**Kerri Maniscalco** · Kingdom of the Wicked, book 1 of 4 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/kingdom-of-the-wicked](https://houseofareader.com/books/kingdom-of-the-wicked)

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.

- Spice: 3/5 — Hot. Building tension across the book with explicit content arriving in the sequels.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, morally-grey-mmc, slow-burn, forbidden-romance, villain-gets-the-girl
- Creatures: witches, demons
- Setting: Sicily, 1890s, and the seven circles beneath it
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: murder, gore, mutilation, grief
- Best for: Readers who want a devil love interest and a completed series to go with him.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 19. The Foxglove King

**Hannah Whitten** · The Nightshade Crown, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-foxglove-king](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-foxglove-king)

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.

- Spice: 3/5 — Hot. A few explicit scenes, unhurried, arriving after a long stretch of hostility.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, morally-grey-mmc, slow-burn, forbidden-romance, forced-proximity
- Creatures: gods, humans
- Setting: Auverraine, a court built over a buried god
- POV: third person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: death, drug use, gore, religious control
- Best for: Readers who want court intrigue and necromancy with a slow, hostile romance.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 20. The Hurricane Wars

**Thea Guanzon** · The Hurricane Wars, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/the-hurricane-wars](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-hurricane-wars)

A soldier of the Lightweaver rebellion is forced into a political marriage with the Night Emperor's heir, the man who has been trying to kill her for years. Southeast Asian-inspired, and the enemies part is unusually well earned.

- Spice: 3/5 — Hot. Explicit scenes in the back half, arriving after a long and genuinely hostile build.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating, forced-proximity, slow-burn, forbidden-romance
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: Sardovia and Kesath, at the end of a war one side has lost
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: war, violence, genocide, torture
- Best for: Readers who want enemies to lovers where the war is still going on around them.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 21. To Kill a Kingdom

**Alexandra Christo** · Standalone · [https://houseofareader.com/books/to-kill-a-kingdom](https://houseofareader.com/books/to-kill-a-kingdom)

A siren who collects the hearts of princes is turned human and thrown into the path of the prince who hunts sirens. A Little Mermaid retelling in which both leads are murderers, which is the correct way to do it.

- Spice: 1/5 — A door, closed. Kissing only. The tension is built entirely out of mutual intent to kill.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, slow-burn, forbidden-romance
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: A hundred kingdoms across a sea full of sirens
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, murder, abusive parent, gore
- Best for: Readers who want a self-contained enemies-to-lovers with no spice at all.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 22. 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

### 23. Powerless

**Lauren Roberts** · The Powerless Trilogy, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/powerless](https://houseofareader.com/books/powerless)

In a kingdom that exiles the powerless, an Ordinary hides among the Elites and enters the trials that would expose her. The prince assigned to hunt people like her is the one falling for her, which is the entire premise and it works.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Kissing and one restrained scene. Written for a younger audience than most of this list.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 3/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance, he-falls-first, slow-burn, academy
- Creatures: humans
- Setting: Ilya, a kingdom divided by whether you have a power
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, death, persecution
- Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the trials and the banter without the explicit scenes.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 24. Serpent & Dove

**Shelby Mahurin** · Serpent & Dove, book 1 of 3 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/serpent-and-dove](https://houseofareader.com/books/serpent-and-dove)

A witch and a witch-hunter are forced into marriage by a public misunderstanding neither can undo. The premise is the whole engine, and the book knows it — every scene is two people who should kill each other being obliged to share a room.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. One explicit scene late on. The rest is antagonism at close quarters.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 3/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity, fake-dating, forbidden-romance, slow-burn
- Creatures: witches, humans
- Setting: Belterra, a French-inflected kingdom burning witches
- POV: first person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: burning, violence, religious persecution, death
- Best for: Readers who want enemies to lovers with a completed trilogy behind it.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 25. From Blood and Ash

**Jennifer L. Armentrout** · Blood and Ash, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/from-blood-and-ash](https://houseofareader.com/books/from-blood-and-ash)

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.

- Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. Frequent and explicit from the middle third onward, escalating steadily.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 3/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: medium
- Tropes: forbidden-romance, touch-her-and-die, enemies-to-lovers, chosen-one
- Creatures: vampires, humans
- Setting: The kingdom of Solis, under a religious order and a plague of the Cursed
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: violence, gore, sexual content, religious control
- Best for: Readers who want forbidden romance where the prohibition is enforced by an entire state.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 26. These Hollow Vows

**Lexi Ryan** · These Hollow Vows, book 1 of 2 (complete) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/these-hollow-vows](https://houseofareader.com/books/these-hollow-vows)

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.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Tension-heavy with brief on-page content. Considerably milder than ACOTAR.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 3/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: medium
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance, morally-grey-mmc, fated-mates
- Creatures: fae, humans
- Setting: The Seelie and Unseelie courts of Faerie
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: ya
- Content warnings: violence, captivity, addiction
- Best for: ACOTAR readers who want the fae courts at a much lower spice level.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 27. A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire

**Jennifer L. Armentrout** · Blood and Ash, book 2 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-kingdom-of-flesh-and-fire](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-kingdom-of-flesh-and-fire)

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.

- Spice: 5/5 — Scorching. Explicit throughout, with several extended scenes and very little restraint.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: instalove
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fated-mates, touch-her-and-die, forced-proximity
- Creatures: vampires, gods
- Setting: The road to Atlantia, through contested land
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: graphic violence, explicit content, gore, torture
- Best for: Anyone who finished the first book angry and needs the next one immediately.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 28. A Shadow in the Ember

**Jennifer L. Armentrout** · Flesh and Fire, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-shadow-in-the-ember](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-shadow-in-the-ember)

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.

- Spice: 5/5 — Scorching. Explicit throughout and unusually frequent even by the author's standards.
- Romance prominence: 5/5
- Plot: 3/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 3/5
- Burn: instalove
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fated-mates, touch-her-and-die, forbidden-romance, morally-grey-mmc
- Creatures: gods, vampires
- Setting: Lasania, in the age of the Primals
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: explicit content, graphic violence, death, grooming
- Best for: Readers who want the spiciest end of the scale with a god as the love interest.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

### 29. A Fate Inked in Blood

**Danielle L. Jensen** · Saga of the Unfated, book 1 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-fate-inked-in-blood](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-fate-inked-in-blood)

A shield-maiden with a drop of a god's blood is bound by an oath to a jarl who intends to use her to unite Skaland. Norse-inflected, politically sharp, and unusually good on the mechanics of being someone else's prophecy.

- Spice: 4/5 — Explicit. Explicit and reasonably frequent, with the physical relationship complicating the politics.
- Romance prominence: 4/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Worldbuilding: 4/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 4/5
- Burn: medium
- Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance, chosen-one, forced-proximity, morally-grey-mmc
- Creatures: gods, humans
- Setting: Skaland, a Norse kingdom of feuding jarls
- POV: first person
- Ending: happy ever after, ends on a cliffhanger
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: graphic violence, war, coercion, death
- Best for: Fourth Wing readers who want the same intensity in a Norse setting.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28


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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.