If you have devoured Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince and find yourself wandering the halls of your own mortal dwelling, heart aching for more tales of treacherous faeries and brave mortals who dare to love them—well then, dear reader, you have come to the right place. For there are other doorways into Faerie, other stories where the beautiful and the terrible intertwine like roses about a thorn.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Here is a tale that begins, as the finest tales do, with a young woman who must hunt to survive. Feyre Archeron knows nothing of faeries save that they are dangerous, until the day she kills a wolf in the winter woods and discovers she has slain something far more precious. Dragged into the glittering, perilous realm of Prythian, she finds herself captive to Tamlin, a High Lord whose beauty conceals secrets darker than midnight. What begins as imprisonment transforms into something altogether more complicated—passion that blazes even as ancient curses threaten to consume them both.
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
Evangeline Fox believes in true love with all the fierce devotion of youth—until the boy she adores announces he shall marry another. In her despair, she does what sensible women never do: she bargains with the Prince of Hearts, a Fate whose kisses have never failed to kill. Three kisses she promises him, to be claimed whenever he wishes. But oh, the price of dealing with immortals! For Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, wants far more than Evangeline has offered, and the game they play grows ever more dangerous.
These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan
Abriella despises the Fae with every fiber of her being—until her beloved sister is sold to the cruel king of the Unseelie Court to settle a debt. What choice has a young woman but to venture into the very realm she fears? Posing as a bride candidate for the golden Prince Ronan, Brie must steal three magical relics from under his nose. Yet nothing in Faerie is simple, and as she falls for Ronan while finding herself drawn to the mysterious Finn of the Unseelie misfits, she discovers that her heart may prove her most dangerous enemy of all.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
In this world, the Fair Folk cannot create—they can only covet. And what they covet most are the Craft works of mortal hands. Isobel is an artist whose portraits are prized throughout the faerie courts, until she makes one terrible mistake: she paints sorrow in the eyes of Rook, the Autumn Prince. Such weakness could cost him his throne, his life. Furious, he spirits her away to stand trial, yet somewhere between the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds and the Alder King’s dark schemes, captor and prisoner discover that rules were made, perhaps, to be broken.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
Here is something altogether different—a tale told through the journal entries of Cambridge’s most cantankerous faerie scholar. Emily Wilde has no time for pleasantries; she is writing the world’s first encyclopedia of the Folk and has traveled to a frozen northern village to complete her research. When her irritatingly charming academic rival Wendell Bambleby arrives to meddle in her work, Emily’s carefully ordered world unravels. For Wendell harbors secrets of his own, and the faeries of the north are not inclined to share their mysteries peacefully.
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Aislinn has always seen them—the faeries that drift through the mortal world, beautiful and cruel. The rules her grandmother taught her are simple: never stare, never speak, never let them know you can see. But rules cannot save her when Keenan, the Summer King himself, decides that Aislinn is the queen he has sought for nine centuries. In the gritty streets of a modern city, ancient powers collide with mortal desires, and a young woman must choose between the life she knows and a destiny that could change everything.
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Meghan Chase believed she was ordinary until her sixteenth birthday, when faeries stole her little brother and left a changeling in his place. To rescue him, she must enter the Nevernever—a realm where the courts of Summer and Winter wage eternal war. There she discovers a staggering truth: her father is none other than Oberon, King of Summer. And there she meets Ash, the coldly beautiful prince of Winter, whose eyes hold secrets and whose loyalty belongs to her enemies. A new threat is rising, too—faeries born of iron and technology, poison to all of Faerie.
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
From birth, Nyx has known her fate: marry the Gentle Lord, the monster who holds her kingdom captive, and kill him. She has trained for this moment, nursed her hatred like a flame. But when she enters his crumbling castle, she finds not a beast but Ignifex—charming, infuriating, and entirely too human beneath his demon’s smile. As Nyx searches for the way to destroy him, she discovers that hatred and love are more alike than she ever imagined, and that the true monster may not be who she expected.
A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth
For centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have hidden among humans in Toronto, bound by ancient laws. When a series of brutal murders threatens to expose their existence, four unlikely allies must work together to find the killer. Among them: an ironborn fae struggling with her identity, an ex-Fury seeking redemption, and two princes with secrets of their own. This is faerie noir at its finest—dark, queer, and utterly compelling.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
In a frozen kingdom where winter never seems to end, Miryem has made herself into a moneylender, transforming silver into gold through sheer determination. But her boasts catch the ear of the Staryk king, lord of the icy fae, who demands she work her magic for him—or forfeit her life. Woven through with threads of Rumpelstiltskin and the chill beauty of eastern European folklore, this is a story of three young women who must match wits with monsters to save themselves and those they love.
A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
Prince Rhen is cursed to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year forever, transforming into a beast who destroys everything he loves. Harper Lacy never expected to be dragged from Washington DC into a crumbling fairy tale kingdom—she was just trying to save a stranger on the street. But Harper, who has spent her life proving that cerebral palsy does not define her limits, may be exactly the unexpected force this curse requires. A Beauty and the Beast retelling with teeth.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
In the deep Russian winter, young Vasya Petrovna can see what others cannot: the household spirits who protect her family, the frost demon who walks the snow. When her father brings home a new wife from Moscow, one who fears the old ways and forbids the honoring of the spirits, darkness begins to creep toward their village. This is no tale of faerie courts and glamour, but something older and wilder—a story steeped in the folklore of frost and forest, where a young woman must become more than mortal to save everyone she loves.
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Poppy has never been allowed to live—the Maiden must remain untouched, unseen, destined for a sacred Ascension. When a new guard named Hawke enters her sheltered world, he awakens desires she was taught to deny. But Hawke is not what he seems, and neither is the kingdom Poppy has served all her life. Secrets buried in blood are rising, and Poppy must choose between duty and a love that could destroy—or save—everything.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber
Every year, Legend hosts Caraval—a game where nothing is real and everything is a performance. Scarlett has dreamed of attending since childhood, but when her sister Tella finally whisks them away to the show, Tella vanishes on the very first night. She has become this season’s prize: whoever finds her wins. As Scarlett navigates a world of shifting secrets and dangerous magic, she must remember: in Caraval, appearances deceive, and losing the game may mean losing her sister forever.
Finding Your Next Fae Obsession
Each of these tales offers something that made The Cruel Prince so irresistible: worlds where beauty and danger share the same face, where mortals must be clever and brave to survive among beings who have forgotten what it means to be human. Whether you crave the political intrigue of faerie courts, the slow burn of forbidden romance, or heroines who refuse to be victims, these books await you.
For the Fae have many doorways, dear reader, and behind each one lies a new adventure. You need only be brave enough to step through.
