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You said you’d never. You had reasons: the covers, the word “romantasy,” the man on the train who was reading a serious book about a war. You were, you felt, a serious reader, and serious readers don’t do dragons.
I said all of that too. Then a hardcover got onto a train with me and I wrote about what happened. So here are five, for the reader who said she’d never, chosen to be read in roughly this order, with notes on which chapters to read in private.
Start here if you want a standalone
Uprooted
Every ten years the Dragon, a wizard, takes a girl from the valley to his tower. This time he takes the wrong one. Standalone, gorgeous, and the forest is one of the great villains in fantasy.
No series commitment, no court politics, one book, done. A valley, a wizard, a forest that’s alive and malevolent and patient, and a heroine who’s a mess at magic in a way that turns out to be the point. The romance is slow and barbed and earned. If you only read one, read this, and if it doesn’t take, you’re released from the genre with my blessing.
Start here if you want the one everyone’s read
Fourth Wing
Violet was meant to be a scribe. Her mother sends her to the dragon riders instead, where the first-years die at a rate that would close a normal school. Fast, fun, and the reason your friend stopped answering texts in 2023.
The war college with dragons. The first-years die constantly and the book does not pretend otherwise. Violet is small and sharp and has a chronic condition the book takes seriously, and the man who is also a problem is the son of a traitor and has a jaw. It’s a very fast book. You’ll finish it in two sittings and then look at the sequel the way you look at a second bottle.
Start here if you want to understand the genre
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Feyre kills a wolf in the woods and is taken across the wall to the faerie lands as the price. Beauty and the Beast with teeth, and the start of the series that made the genre a word.
The one that started the current wave. A huntress, a wolf, a faerie lord who’s cursed and cross. It begins as a fairy tale and ends somewhere much darker and more political, and the series then does a thing in book two that I will not describe, except to say that every romantasy since has been trying to do it again.
Start here if you like being lied to
The Cruel Prince
Jude is human, raised among the fae after watching them kill her parents, and she wants power the way other people want air. Cardan is awful. Everyone knows where this goes. It's still a joy getting there.
Faerie as a court of liars, and a human girl who decides to out-lie all of them. Jude is the most ruthless heroine on this list and the most fun. Cardan is cruel in chapter one and cruel in chapter twenty and you will, against every stated principle, be on his side by the end. The genre’s best villain-to-whatever-he-becomes.
Start here if you’ve been warned about spice and want it anyway
From Blood and Ash
Poppy is the Maiden, kept veiled and untouched for a destiny she didn't choose, until a new guard arrives who's very bad at the "untouched" part. Spicier than the others here. You've been told.
The Maiden, the guard, the veil. More explicit than the others here, so this is the one to read on the Kindle and not the hardcover, unless you want the woman across the aisle to know exactly what page you’re on. The plot’s a slow reveal of who’s been lying to Poppy, which is everyone, and it’s great.
The order
Uprooted, then Fourth Wing, then Thorns and Roses. By then you’ll know whether you’re staying. If you’re staying: Cruel Prince, then Blood and Ash, then clear a shelf. There’s a lot of it. It’s not a moment. It’s a climate.