Best Romantasy Books 2026: 10 Ranked by a Romantasy Author

In 2024 I became a romantasy person the way you become a runner: suddenly, and with a lot of opinions about gear. I read over 80 books in the fantasy romance space that year, I am on pace for 100-plus in 2026, and somewhere in there I wrote one of my own. So when someone asks me for the best romantasy books, this is the list I send, ranked, with my real rating on every book I have finished.

My Kindle Unlimited list only covers books that are free with a KU membership. This one is the whole shelf, trad-pub hardcovers and indie ebooks together, ranked from the all-timer down, with a spice level on every entry and no spoilers anywhere. Three stars on this page means I liked it and had notes. Anything I could not finish did not make the list.

The best romantasy books, if you read exactly one from each tier: A Court of Mist and Fury for the all-timer, Phantasma for a standalone with real spice, Fourth Wing for dragons and a war college, and Quicksilver for the fae enemies-to-lovers the ACOTAR fandom adopted.

Here is the full ranking.

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses (the Series) by Sarah J. Maas

This series is about… Feyre Archeron, a huntress who kills the wrong wolf and pays for it in the faerie lands of Prythian, and the courts, bargains, and High Lords who reshape her life over five books. It starts as a Beauty and the Beast retelling and stops being one by the middle of book two.

Subgenre: fae court romantasy, the template everyone else is working from.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5 by book two, mild in book one.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 for the series, on the strength of A Court of Mist and Fury, which I rated 5,000 out of 5 and stand by. Books one and three got 4 out of 5 from me, and the whole thing changed my reading life. If you are starting from zero, my guide to the ACOTAR books in order has ratings for each one and the two new books coming this fall and winter. Read my review of book one here.

2. Phantasma by Kaylie Smith

This book is about… When Ophelia’s sister disappears, she enters a set of deadly trials inside a magical New Orleans mansion said to be run by the devil himself. Win, and she gets a single wish. Lose, and the house keeps her.

Subgenre: modern dark romantasy, deadly trials division.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ 4/5. Lots of it.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars. A standalone with real world-building, a doomed-love romance that feels earned, and a gothic New Orleans setting I devoured in two days. My one note is an ending that hurries. It is still the book I tell people to bump to the top of the pile. Read my full review here.

3. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

This book is about… Violet Sorrengail, bookish and physically fragile in a world that punishes both, is forced into a war college where cadets bond with dragons or die trying. The school wants her dead, and the most dangerous cadet there has a grudge against her family name.

Subgenre: dragon-rider romantasy.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5, on par with Quicksilver.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. I did not think dragons were my thing. I read it at a pace I can only describe as medically inadvisable and bought the sequel immediately. The rest of the Empyrean series is uneven (I gave Iron Flame and Onyx Storm 3 out of 5 each), and I would still start you here. Read my full review here, and when you finish, my list of books like Fourth Wing is waiting.

4. Quicksilver by Callie Hart

This book is about… Saeris Fane is a thief in a desert world where water is rationed and stolen, until she falls into the world of the fae and ends up forging quicksilver weapons beside an irritable fae warrior for a war she never signed up for.

Subgenre: fae enemies-to-lovers with a sword-in-the-stone streak.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5. Some of the things that come out of Kingfisher’s mouth ~ absolutely ~ made me blush.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. One of my top reads of 2024: witty dialog, an energetic plot, and an electrifying rush of a book after a run of duds. It survives its own Kindle-edition typos, which is saying something. Read my full review here.

5. From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This book is about… Poppy is the Maiden, her whole life scheduled around a destiny nobody asked if she wanted, until a new guard named Hawke joins her protection detail and becomes the one person she absolutely cannot want.

Subgenre: forbidden-romance romantasy, the fandom’s favorite next read after ACOTAR.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ 4/5. Runs hotter than ACOTAR book one.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. The banter between Poppy and Hawke is the sparkliest thing in the book, the pacing strolls and flirts and takes the scenic route, and I bought the sequel the second I finished anyway. The series holds up: A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire and The War of Two Queens both earned 4 out of 5 from me. Read my full review here.

6. The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

This book is about… Lara, raised as a weapon by her father the king, is married off to the ruler of the enemy kingdom she was trained her whole life to bring down. The marriage is the mission. The mission gets complicated.

Subgenre: enemies-to-lovers with a spy in the marriage.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. A tight, confident, slump-destroying romantasy, and the one I hand to people whose comfort series is Throne of Glass. Read my full review here.

7. House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) by Sarah J. Maas

This book is about… Bryce Quinlan is a half-fae party girl in a modern magical city (think angels with smartphones) until a brutal crime tears her life apart. Two years later the case reopens, and she is partnered with Hunt Athalar, a fallen angel with his own reasons to cooperate.

Subgenre: urban romantasy, a murder mystery in a trench coat.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. You will have to survive 200-plus pages of dense exposition before the core story ignites, and those pages needed a firmer editor. Then Maas does what she does with third acts, and this might be the best one she has written. I held the book closer to my face at 3am as if that speeds it up. Read my full review here.

8. The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

This book is about… Oraya is a human raised by the vampire king, adopted prey in a world of predators. Her one path to power is the Kejari, a legendary tournament where the prize is a wish and the entry fee is usually your life.

Subgenre: vampire romantasy, deadly trials division.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️ 2/5.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars. Polished, deliberate world-building and an ending that surprised me into starting the sequel immediately. I just wanted more wit, because it plays everything a little somber next to the Maas books. Read my full review here.

9. Throne of Glass (the Series) by Sarah J. Maas

This series is about… Celaena Sardothien, the most famous assassin in the kingdom, pulled out of a death camp to compete for the job of the king’s champion, and the seven novels and one prequel collection of empire, magic, and reinvention that follow.

Subgenre: epic fantasy with romance, the long way around.

Spice level: low, and it grows up with the series.

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 stars for the series, for epic-fantasy patience-havers. It asks for a seven-book commitment and a few rocky stretches before it pays out, and I still could not stay away from Maas’s third universe. Read ACOTAR first. My full series review is here.

10. 🔥 The Ash Trials by Amy Suto (Yes, Me)

In the grand tradition of this blog’s transparent self-promotion: I wrote this one, and I wrote it because the books above turned me into the kind of reader who needed more deadly-stakes romantasy than the genre could hand me fast enough.

This book is about… Saffron Vale wakes in a ruined wedding dress, locked in a prison for the kingdom’s deadliest criminals, with no memory of who she is. To survive the brutal Ash Trials, she must outlast shifters, spellcasters, and something even more dangerous: the truth about herself. Her only allies? A traitorous commander from her past and an assassin who swears she is the real monster here.

Subgenre: deadly trials romantasy.

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ 3/5.

What I hope you’ll love about it: deadly trials, a slow-burn romance, and a heroine with everything to prove. It is on Kindle Unlimited, and if tonight is the night you stay up too late with a book, I would love it to be mine.

How I Rank Romantasy Books

Every book on this page is one I finished, rated, and reviewed on the blog, which is why a few famous titles are missing: I do not rank what I have not read. The order is my star rating first and how often I recommend the book second, which is how a 3-star series can sit above a 3-star standalone. Spice ratings are mine, on a scale where 1 is closed-door and 5 is a book you angle away from strangers on the train.

I keep this list current. New romantasy lands every month, I read a lot of it, and I move things around here when a book earns it, so the ranking you see today may not be the one you see in March. When you need to recover from all the fae, my romantic thriller books list is the palate cleanser, and billionaire romance books is where the power games come with a penthouse.

FAQ: Romantasy Books

What is romantasy?

Romantasy is fantasy where the romance is a main plot rather than a subplot. Take the love story out and the book collapses, which is the test every entry above passes, including the three-star ones.

What is the best romantasy book to start with?

A Court of Thorns and Roses if you want the series everyone references, or Fourth Wing if you want to be hooked by page fifty. Both are gateway books, and my ACOTAR reading order guide will keep you from skipping ahead.

Which romantasy books on this list are the spiciest?

From Blood and Ash and Phantasma, both 4 out of 5 chilis from me. A Court of Silver Flames is the spiciest ACOTAR book by reputation, and Heartless Hunter, which lives on my books like ACOTAR list, is the one to hand a teenager.

Are the best romantasy books on Kindle Unlimited?

Several of them. Quicksilver, Phantasma, Fourth Wing, and my own The Ash Trials were all on KU when I built my Kindle Unlimited romantasy list, and that list only carries books you can read for the price of a KU membership.

Start with the all-timer or the standalone, and clear a weekend either way. Here’s to the 3am chapter you promised yourself you would not start.