Rebecca Yarros took the world by storm this year with her romance fantasy Fourth Wing. The first book in her new Empyrean series, it became huge on BookTok and Bookstagram. Readers fell in love with the protagonist Violet, a young woman with a chronic illness who is attending Basgiath War College. Despite wanting to be a scribe, Violet is in her first year in the (much more dangerous) Rider Quadrant, training to be a dragon rider.
What do you love about Fourth Wing? Do you love a magical academy setting, an enemies-to-lovers romance, or are you simply obsessed with dragons? No matter why you like Fourth Wing, we have great romantasy (romance-fantasy) recommendations for you.
Galadriel (nicknamed El) is a headstrong student at Scholomance, a boarding school for young sorcerers. The pressure of doing well in classes is like no other, as the punishment for failing classes is certain death. But El isn’t scared and is set on graduating, until Orion comes along, killing all of the monsters in El’s path before she can even show everyone her slaying skills. Now the only monsters left to kill are the big baddies. El and Orion reluctantly team up to defeat the remaining monsters, graduate and above all, survive. The first in the trilogy, A Deadly Education fulfills your wishes for a black cat/golden retriever relationship set in a backdrop of a magical school.
In this historical fantasy based on the legend of George and the Dragon, Samantha Shannon's The Priory of the Orange Tree follows Ead, who is undercover as a lady-in-waiting to protect the queen Sabran the Ninth. Thousands of years prior, a dragon called The Nameless One terrorized their kingdom and Sabran's bloodline is inextricably bound with keeping the beast at bay (literally, the dragon is now condemned to live underwater). But Sabran has no children and the enemies are drawing near. Told from four different perspectives, this sweeping feminist fantasy is perfect for those obsessed with epic secrets and dragon lore.
Five years before the start of Chloe Gong's Immortal Longings, Princess Calla killed her parents and went into hiding. Now she’s back with a plot to destroy the king. Her reasoning is noble: she must disrupt the monarchy in order to end poverty. To do so, Calla aims to win a gladiator style tournament, where she must compete with Anton (an exiled noble) and Crown Prince August. The enemies-to-lovers theme and incredibly high stakes reign supreme in this Hunger Games-esque high fantasy for adults. Bonus: this book is loosely based on the Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, for all the theater buffs out there.
The Atlas Six follows six students of the Alexandrian Society, a secret society of magicians. Only five will be initiated into the society and one will be eliminated through a series of tests and trials. The students each have their own specialty: Libby and Nico are masters of the physical realm, Reina is a naturalist, Parisa is a telepath and Callum is an empath. But it is Tristan who possess the rarest trait of all: the ability to conceptualize a new structure of reality. This fantasy book oozes with dark academia (full of plotting and scheming), reminiscent of The Umbrella Academy with a touch of The Secret History.
What is your favorite romantasy book?
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