# Uprooted by Naomi Novik

### 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

## Sources

- https://openlibrary.org/search?q=Uprooted+Naomi+Novik

## What to read next

- [Spinning Silver](https://houseofareader.com/books/spinning-silver) by Naomi Novik — spice 1/5. Readers who want a fae bargain plot with essentially no spice and exceptional writing.
- [The Priory of the Orange Tree](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree) by Samantha Shannon — spice 2/5. Fourth Wing readers who want dragons with far more worldbuilding and far less spice.
- [The Cruel Prince](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-cruel-prince) by Holly Black — spice 1/5. ACOTAR readers who want the fae court politics without the explicit content.
- [For the Wolf](https://houseofareader.com/books/for-the-wolf) by Hannah Whitten — spice 2/5. Readers who loved Uprooted and want something darker in the same forest.

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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.