There exist among us, we are quite certain, those most exquisitely dedicated readers who have wandered the streets of New York with Clary Fray, felt the sting of runes upon their skin, and emerged forever changed. If you are such a soul—one who has loved the hidden world of Shadowhunters and now finds yourself bereft, searching for that same intoxicating blend of danger, romance, and secret magic—then do come closer, for we have tales to share.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
In the winding lanes of Prague lives Karou, a young woman with hair the impossible blue of a cloudless sky—and it grows that way, mind you, straight from her head. She was raised by chimera, those magnificent creatures of tooth and claw, and she collects teeth for them in exchange for wishes. One might think this quite enough strangeness for any young woman, yet when black handprints begin scorching doorways across the world and a beautiful angel appears with vengeance in his golden eyes, Karou discovers her life has only just begun to twist into impossible shapes.
This is a book exquisitely written and beautifully paced, where love becomes a thing of aching wonder and the war between angels and monsters reveals itself to be far more complicated than heaven and hell.
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir—half-human, half-vampire—and the sworn guardian of her best friend Lissa, a Moroi princess whose gentle magic carries secrets neither of them fully understands. They have returned to St. Vladimir’s Academy, that peculiar school where young vampires learn to wield elemental magic whilst their guardians train to protect them from the Strigoi, those truly terrible undead who would drain them of life and soul alike.
Rose possesses a fierce heart and a sharper tongue, carrying this tale upon her stubborn shoulders with wit enough to make you laugh and courage enough to make you weep. The world Richelle Mead has crafted blends boarding school intrigue with genuinely inventive vampire mythology.
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Blue Sargent has grown up surrounded by psychics, though she herself possesses no such gift—only the curious ability to amplify the powers of others. She has always been warned that should she kiss her true love, he will die. And so when she sees a spirit named Gansey on St. Mark’s Eve—the one night the soon-to-die walk as ghosts—she knows her fate has begun its terrible weaving.
Gansey is a Raven Boy from Aglionby Academy, searching for the ancient Welsh king Glendower along mysterious ley lines of power. This is a story dark and atmospheric, where friendships grow as tangled and beautiful as enchanted forests, and Latin-speaking trees guard secrets older than memory.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
In the teeming streets of Ketterdam, six young outcasts are offered an impossible heist—break into the most impregnable fortress in the world and steal a secret that could destroy nations. Kaz Brekker, the criminal mastermind with gloved hands and a cane that doubles as a weapon, assembles his crew of spies, sharpshooters, soldiers, and thieves.
Each member carries wounds both visible and hidden, and Leigh Bardugo reveals their hearts through flashbacks so masterfully woven you shall not notice time passing until your candle has burned quite low. This is a found family forged in desperation, and their loyalty to one another becomes the most precious treasure of all.
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The nation of Ravka lies torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a wound of darkness filled with monsters that devour all who attempt to cross. Young mapmaker Alina Starkov has always believed herself ordinary, until the moment her regiment is attacked and light explodes from her very hands. She is Grisha—a wielder of the Small Science—and perhaps the one soul alive who can destroy the Fold forever.
The magic system here is wonderfully inventive, rooted in elemental manipulation that feels both ancient and fresh. The Tsarist Russia-inspired setting sweeps you into a world of fur-trimmed coats, glittering palaces, and the terrible price of power.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
When Bree Matthews witnesses a demon attack on her first night at a university program, she does not run. Instead, she infiltrates the secret society responsible—the Legendborn, who are none other than the descendants of King Arthur’s knights, their powers passed through bloodlines for centuries.
But Bree carries her own inheritance: Southern Black girl magic rooted in ancestral traditions the Legendborn have never acknowledged. Tracy Deonn has written something remarkable here, braiding Arthurian legend with explorations of grief, racism, and the magic that lives in lineages long overlooked by those who write history.
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
Elisabeth Scrivener grew up in a Great Library, where grimoires are living things, dangerous enough to be kept behind iron bars. These books can transform into maleficts—monsters of paper and binding—if mishandled. When Elisabeth is blamed for an attack and sent away in the custody of the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn and his demon servant Silas, she discovers a conspiracy that threatens every library in the kingdom.
Elisabeth is tall and fierce and speaks to books as though they might answer—which, in her world, they sometimes do. This is an adventure for anyone who has ever loved libraries with a devotion bordering on the religious.
Tithe by Holly Black
Sixteen-year-old Kaye has always seen faeries—the real sort, not the pretty creatures of children’s tales, but beings of casual cruelty and dangerous bargains. When she saves a wounded faerie knight in the New Jersey woods near her childhood home, she becomes entangled in a power struggle between two courts that sees no difference between a human life and a chess piece.
Holly Black and Cassandra Clare are long-time writing companions, and readers who love the darker edges of the Shadowhunter world will find much to savour here. This is faerie folklore at its most unsettling and seductive, a fever dream of glamour and thorns.
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Celaena Sardothien is Adarlan’s most notorious assassin, though you might not guess it from her love of fine gowns and beautiful music. Released from a brutal prison to compete for the position of King’s Champion, she must prove herself against thieves and warriors whilst a series of mysterious murders unfolds within the glass castle.
Most fantasy assassins brood in shadows, but Celaena is magnificently vain and unashamedly dramatic, carrying her story with cocky confidence even as darker magic stirs beneath the surface.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
When huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the winter forest, she does not realize she has slain a faerie in disguise. Dragged across the wall that separates the mortal lands from Prythian, she becomes the captive of Tamlin, a High Lord with a beast’s mask and secrets that could damn them both.
This is Beauty and the Beast rewritten with thorns, where the curse is far darker and the romance burns slowly until it consumes everything in its path. Sarah J. Maas builds her faerie courts with lavish detail, each more dangerous and beautiful than the last.
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
In 1926 Shanghai, two rival gangs rule the streets with blood and bullets—the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers. Juliette Cai has returned from America to lead her family’s empire, only to face Roma Montagov, her first love turned bitter enemy. When a madness begins spreading through both gangs, causing victims to claw out their own throats, they must work together to stop a monster that answers to no master.
Chloe Gong transposes Romeo and Juliet to the chaos of colonial Shanghai, and her prose is rich as silk, her portrait of the era so vivid you can smell the river at midnight.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
In a world inspired by ancient Rome, Laia is a Scholar—one of the conquered people who live as servants and slaves to the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested, she agrees to spy within the most brutal military academy in the realm. There she encounters Elias, a soldier who dreams of freedom even as he is trained to be a weapon.
Sabaa Tahir writes with searing intensity about the cost of resistance and the terrible price of empire. This is sword-and-sand fantasy with genuine moral weight, where every choice carries consequence.
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson has always been a troubled kid—expelled from every school, seeing things no one else can see, unable to sit still. When he learns he is the son of Poseidon and stands accused of stealing Zeus’s master bolt, he embarks upon a quest through a modern America where Mount Olympus sits atop the Empire State Building and monsters lurk in every rest stop.
Rick Riordan writes with such wit and warmth that readers of all ages shall find themselves charmed. Percy is a loveable fool, proof that you need not be academically brilliant to be brave and kind and heroic.
Finding Your Next Adventure
Each of these books offers something the Shadowhunter stories gave us—hidden worlds layered beneath our own, chosen families bound by loyalty and love, romances that burn through impossible circumstances, and protagonists who discover they carry powers they never suspected.
The best stories, we have always believed, are those that make us feel less alone in our own strangeness. If you have found such companionship in the world of runes and angel blood, you shall surely find it again within these pages. Now off you go—there are demons to fight and mysteries to unravel and great loves waiting to be discovered.
