Fourth Wing (2023) sends Violet Sorrengail into Basgiath War College, where cadets who want to ride dragons have to survive the training first, and many do not. Rebecca Yarros followed it with Iron Flame later in 2023 and Onyx Storm in January 2025, and the Empyrean series is still going. If you are waiting for the next one, it helps to know which part of the book you loved most, because the obvious read-alikes pull in different directions. This list is grouped that way.
A note before you start: Fourth Wing has explicit scenes, and so do several of the romantasy picks below. The dragon and school sections are mostly much tamer.
If you loved the dragons
The bond between rider and dragon, the telepathy, the sense that the dragon is choosing you rather than the other way round.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (2002)
A farm boy finds a stone that hatches into Saphira, and the two grow up together. It is younger in tone than Fourth Wing, but few books spend as much time on what a rider-and-dragon bond feels like from the inside.
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (2006)
The Napoleonic Wars, fought with an aerial corps of dragons. A naval captain ends up bonded to the dragon Temeraire, and the friendship between them is the heart of the Temeraire series. Witty, warm and very good on the logistics of flying a dragon into battle.
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (1968)
The book that set the template for telepathic dragons who choose their riders at hatching. The Dragonriders of Pern is older and more formal in style, but if the bond is what you came for, this is where it started.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (2019)
A standalone epic in which some dragons are ancient allies and others are the enemy. It has a slow-burn romance, a queen whose line holds back the dark, and dragon riders in the East. A good choice if you want one big book rather than a series.
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (2021)
Girls are sacrificed to pilot giant transforming machines called Chrysalises, and the narrator, Zetian, goes in intending to take revenge. It swaps dragons for mecha shaped like them, but it shares Fourth Wing’s brutal training system and its angry, determined heroine.
If you loved the deadly school
The parapet on the first day, the cadets who do not come back, the feeling that the institution itself is the most dangerous thing in the book.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown (2014)
A miner on Mars infiltrates the ruling caste by entering its academy, where the final exam is a war between houses with real deaths. If you loved the cruelty of Basgiath and the politics behind it, this is probably the closest match on the list.
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang (2018)
A war orphan tests into an elite military academy in a world modelled on twentieth-century China. The first part reads like a school story, and then the war arrives. Be aware that it becomes very dark and depicts atrocities directly.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (2020)
The Scholomance is a school of magic with no teachers, where monsters come up through the drains and graduation is a fight to the exit. El, the narrator, is sarcastic and powerful and trying hard not to become a dark sorceress. It is funnier than Fourth Wing and has very little romance.
If you loved the romance
Enemies to lovers, a brooding second lead with secrets, and stakes that keep rising. This is the romantasy shelf, and it is a big one.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (2015)
A huntress kills a wolf and is taken across the wall into the faerie lands as payment. The first book is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and the series grows much darker and more explicit from the second book on.
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (2012)
An assassin is pulled out of a prison mine to compete for the role of the king’s champion. It begins as a competition story, which makes it a natural follow-up to Fourth Wing, and grows into a long epic over eight books.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (2018)
A mortal girl raised in the High Court of Faerie decides that if she cannot be accepted, she will be feared. The romance with the prince Cardan is genuinely antagonistic, and the court politics are sharper than in most of the genre. It is a young adult book, so the heat stays low.
Powerless by Lauren Roberts (2023)
In a kingdom where the powerless are exiled or killed, Paedyn hides among the gifted and is drawn into a deadly royal competition opposite the prince she should hate. It is one of the most direct Fourth Wing read-alikes in structure.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent (2022)
The adopted human daughter of a vampire king enters a lethal tournament held by the goddess of death, and has to work with a rival from an enemy house. Competition, an alliance with an enemy, and an excellent dark setting.
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout (2020)
A Maiden chosen by the gods is assigned a new guard, and nothing about him is what it seems. The series is long and the plot twists are frequent. Readers who enjoyed Xaden’s secrets often come here next.
Quicksilver by Callie Hart (2024)
A thief is dragged into the faerie realm by a fae warrior she cannot stand. It is very much an adult romantasy, with a slow burn that becomes explicit, and a big success with readers who found it online.
A note on where to start
If you want the closest single match, try Red Rising for the school or Powerless for the romance. If you want a dragon book that stands alone, take The Priory of the Orange Tree. If you want a bigger, older kind of epic, our books like The Lord of the Rings list is the place to look, and our standalone fantasy list is good when you do not want another series to wait for.