What to Read After Fourth Wing
April 6, 2026
You’ve finished Fourth Wing and possibly Iron Flame and you need something to fill the dragon-shaped hole in your life. Here’s where to go next, organised by what specifically you loved about the Empyrean series.
If You Loved the Enemies-to-Lovers Arc
A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas
The comparison that every Fourth Wing recommendation leads to. ACOTAR has a similar structure: a strong female protagonist in a world of magic, a morally complex male love interest with a hidden depth, and a romance that burns slowly before igniting.
The enemies-to-lovers tension between Feyre and Rhysand in A Court of Mist and Fury (Book 2) is often cited as the gold standard of the trope. If you loved Xaden, you’ll likely love Rhysand.
The Cruel Prince — Holly Black
Jude is mortal in a world of faeries. Cardan is cruel, powerful, and impossible to trust. The enemies-to-lovers dynamic here is sharper and faster than ACOTAR — Holly Black writes with less warmth and more political edge.
If You Loved the Military Academy Setting
From Blood and Ash — Jennifer L. Armentrout
Not a military academy, but a world with strict hierarchies, forbidden relationships, and similar tension between duty and desire. Poppy’s situation — the Chosen, constrained by rules she didn’t make — parallels Violet’s position in the Riders in interesting ways.
Full Blood and Ash reading order →
If You Loved the Dragon-Bonding
The Temeraire Series — Naomi Novik
A completely different take: Napoleonic Wars with dragons as aerial cavalry. Less romantasy, more historical fantasy with a profound partnership between a British naval captain and his dragon. Earnest, warm, and very good.
If You Loved the Found Family Dynamics
Six of Crows — Leigh Bardugo
The ensemble cast of the Empyrean series — the found family of riders with their competing loyalties — has a direct equivalent in the Crows. Six morally grey characters with complicated histories on a heist that none of them should survive.
If You Loved the Dark Romantasy
Crowns of Nyaxia — Carissa Broadbent
Darker than Fourth Wing, more gothic. A vampire world, political intrigue, and an enemies-to-lovers arc with real emotional stakes. For readers who want more darkness alongside their romance.
If You Loved the Magic System
The Stormlight Archive — Brandon Sanderson
If what drew you to the Empyrean series was the complexity of its magic and world-building — how dragon bonding works, what Wyverns are, the mechanics of signet powers — then Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive offers the most elaborately constructed magic system in modern fantasy.
It’s a very long commitment (each book is 1,000+ pages) but unmatched in depth.
The Honest Answer
For most readers: read ACOTAR next. The overlap in what makes both series work — the magic, the morally complex love interest, the found family, the world-building — is significant enough that ACOTAR is the most natural continuation of the Fourth Wing reading experience.
After ACOTAR, Six of Crows and From Blood and Ash will fill different corners of what you loved about the Empyrean series.