Books Similar to Onyx Storm: 13 Romantasy Reads for Empyrean Fans (2026)
Onyx Storm broke records because Rebecca Yarros never lets the dragons do the work alone. Violet Sorrengail's third year at Basgiath War College raises the body count, raises the political stakes, and keeps the Violet-Xaden relationship dangerous even after two books of built-up trust. What hooks readers isn't dragons by themselves, it's the combination of a war-college setting where failure is often fatal, a protagonist who survives on strategy rather than raw power, and a central romance that keeps finding new ways to put itself under pressure. This list is built around those three qualities, and every title here is one that hasn't already been paired with Fourth Wing to death, so if you've worked through the obvious comps, these are the next stop.
Quicksilver by Callie Hart (2024)
Saeris Fane strikes a bargain with Vincent Vysenn Dragna, the ruler of the Fae Alchemy, to find a rare metal that can save her sick father, and ends up trapped in his tower as his prisoner and reluctant student. Quicksilver topped bestseller lists for most of 2024 and 2026 on the strength of its enemies-to-lovers tension, razor-sharp banter, and a slow burn that takes its time without ever losing momentum.
If the push-pull between Violet and Xaden is what keeps you reading Yarros, Saeris and Vincent's dynamic hits the same addictive rhythm.
When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker (2024)
Erin Hidalgo has spent years locked away as a prisoner, but when her reckless little sister is taken by dragon riders she volunteers to take her place and ends up bonded against her will to a dragon that despises her as much as the man who commands it. Parker builds a mythology dense enough to satisfy readers who finished Onyx Storm wanting even more creature lore, and the dragon itself gets a personality as sharp as any human character.
This is the single closest comp on this list for readers who want the bonded-dragon mechanic front and center.
Find When the Moon Hatched on Amazon
Phantasma by Kaylie Smith (2024)
Lina Rosewood enters a deadly, invitation-only competition inside the Devil's Manor in New Orleans to save her sister from a debt owed to the house's ruler, a man as seductive as he is dangerous. Phantasma trades dragons for a gothic, horror-tinged competition arc, but the structure, a heroine who has to out-think a tournament designed to kill her, maps directly onto Basgiath's deadliest trials.
Pick this one if the war-college danger is what you crave and you don't mind a darker, more atmospheric wrapper around it.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (2020)
El Higgins is a student at the Scholomance, a magic school with no teachers and no way out before graduation, where roughly half the students die before they earn a diploma. Novik strips out the romance almost entirely and replaces it with pure survival-school tension, but the core appeal, a protagonist who has to be smarter and harder than everyone around her just to live through the semester, is the exact engine that drives Violet's chapters at Basgiath.
Start here if the war-college mortality rate is the part of Onyx Storm you can't stop thinking about.
Find A Deadly Education on Amazon
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (2002)
A farm boy named Eragon finds a strange blue stone in the forest that turns out to be a dragon egg, and his bond with the hatchling Saphira pulls him into a war against a tyrant king and the dragon riders who serve him. Eragon is the book that introduced an entire generation of readers to the dragon-rider bond as an emotional core, not just a vehicle, decades before Yarros brought the trope to adult romantasy.
If you want to trace the dragon-rider genre back to its most influential modern root, this is where to start.
Temeraire by Naomi Novik (2006)
Captain Will Laurence captures a rare dragon egg during a naval battle in the Napoleonic Wars and finds himself bonded for life to Temeraire, a dragon with more intelligence and ambition than most of the humans around him. Novik reimagines the entire Napoleonic era with dragon aerial corps woven into real military history, giving the dragon-rider bond a scale and institutional weight that rivals Basgiath's.
If what you love about Onyx Storm is the military machinery around the dragons as much as the romance, Temeraire delivers that in a sweeping, war-spanning series.
To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (2023)
Anequs, an Indigenous teenager, bonds with a dragon the colonizing Anglish say never should have chosen her, and is forced into their rigid dragon academy where her culture and competence are both constantly under attack. This Nebula and Lodestar Award winner takes the dragon-academy structure Onyx Storm fans already love and uses it to interrogate who gets to belong in institutions built to exclude them.
Pick this one if you want the academy-training structure with sharper stakes around identity and power, not just survival.
Find To Shape a Dragon's Breath on Amazon
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (1968)
Lessa, the last survivor of a slaughtered noble house, bonds with a golden queen dragon and has to convince a society that's forgotten the old threats that dragons are still necessary before it's too late. Dragonflight is the foundational text of the telepathic dragon-rider bond, the book that established the emotional template every modern dragon-rider romantasy, including the Empyrean series, still draws from.
If you want to understand where the entire genre's dragon-bond mechanics originated, this is the one to read next.
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (2023)
Amina al-Sirafi, a retired pirate captain with a complicated past, is pulled back for one last job to rescue a kidnapped girl, reassembling her old found-family crew for a voyage across a magic-soaked medieval Indian Ocean. There's no dragon-rider academy here, but the found-family crew dynamic, the competent woman leading dangerous people into worse danger, and the constant banter will feel familiar to anyone who loves Violet's squad at Basgiath.
Start here if the found-family adventure energy is what you want without another classroom.
Find The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi on Amazon
An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard (2017)
Every generation, New York City's magical houses compete in a tournament called the Turning to determine who holds power for the next cycle, and this time the Turning has been rigged to kill competitors who were never supposed to survive it. Howard's tournament structure, where losing can mean death and the rules are stacked against the underdog, echoes the same deadly-competition tension that runs through every threshing and parapet climb at Basgiath.
Pick this one if the tournament-stakes danger, not the dragons specifically, is what hooked you on Onyx Storm.
Find An Unkindness of Magicians on Amazon
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (2015)
Mare Barrow discovers she has a rare power that lets her, a common Red, pass as one of the superhuman Silver elite, and gets pulled into their palace as a fake princess while secretly working against the system that enslaves her kind. The academy-adjacent training scenes, a heroine who has to out-perform people who were born with advantages she wasn't, and a romance built on a lie that can't hold forever all land close to the tension that drives Violet's early chapters.
If the class-based power structure at Basgiath is part of what you love, Red Queen builds an entire world around that same divide.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (2018)
Zélie Adebola gets one dangerous chance to restore the magic that was stripped from her people, teaming up with a rogue princess and racing against a crown prince hunting them both across a West African-inspired kingdom. Adeyemi writes training-and-war stakes with real consequences and a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers thread that never lets either side forget which family they're supposed to be loyal to.
Pick this one if you want the stakes of a war brewing in the background while two people who shouldn't trust each other keep ending up on the same side.
Find Children of Blood and Bone on Amazon
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (2011)
Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, accidentally calls up a long-lost enchanted manuscript in the Bodleian Library and finds herself drawn to Matthew Clairmont, a centuries-old vampire geneticist who may be the only one who can help her survive what she's uncovered. There's no war college here, but the slow-burn romance between a woman discovering a power she was taught to suppress and a dangerous, ancient love interest who could destroy her plays the same long game Yarros runs with Violet and Xaden.
Start here if you want the forbidden, power-imbalanced romance without the body count.
Find A Discovery of Witches on Amazon
How the Genre-Defining Traits Line Up
| Book | Dragons | Academy or tournament setting | Romance heat | Series status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Onyx Storm | Yes | Yes | High | Ongoing, 5 books planned |
| Quicksilver | No | No | High | Ongoing |
| When the Moon Hatched | Yes | No | High | Ongoing |
| Phantasma | No | Yes | High | Ongoing |
| A Deadly Education | No | Yes | Low | Complete trilogy |
| Temeraire | Yes | No | None | Complete, 9 books |
| To Shape a Dragon's Breath | Yes | Yes | Low | Ongoing |
| Dragonflight | Yes | No | Moderate | Complete, 25 books |
| An Unkindness of Magicians | No | Yes | Moderate | Standalone |
How to Pick Your Next Book
If you loved the bonded-dragon mechanic specifically: start with When the Moon Hatched or Temeraire.
If you want the same tournament-stakes danger: An Unkindness of Magicians or Phantasma.
If you want the closest romantasy formula (enemies to lovers, high heat, slow burn): Quicksilver or Red Queen.
If you want the war-college setting with the romance turned down and the mortality rate turned up: A Deadly Education.
If you want found-family adventure instead of another classroom: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.
For more reading lists in this vein, see our guides to books similar to Fourth Wing, books similar to Game of Thrones, and books similar to Dungeon Crawler Carl.
FAQ
What is the closest book to Onyx Storm? When the Moon Hatched for the bonded-dragon mechanic and creature lore, Temeraire for the military scale and institutional world-building around dragon riders.
Is there a release date for the Empyrean book after Onyx Storm? Rebecca Yarros has said she started plotting the untitled fourth book in February 2026 and began writing it in March 2026. A placeholder date of August 2027 is circulating, though it may slip into 2028, and the series is planned to run five books total.
Are there books like Onyx Storm without as much romance? Dragonflight and To Shape a Dragon's Breath both deliver dragon-bonding mechanics and academy training with the romance kept in the background. A Deadly Education goes even further, dropping romance almost entirely for survival-school tension.
Your next good book, in your inbox
We only write when we find a book worth your time. Hand-picked recommendations across history, mythology, true crime and more.
Books You Might Like
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl