7 Books to Read After Crescent City
Crescent City is Sarah J. Maas at her most maximalist: the fae world of ACOTAR, the warrior-women of Throne of Glass, and a contemporary urban fantasy setting, all poured into one enormous series. Here's what to read next.
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Feyre Archeron kills a wolf in the woods and is taken to the immortal land of Prythian by a fae warrior. The world is more beautiful and more dangerous than anything she's imagined.
If you haven't read ACOTAR yet — the other half of the Maas universe — start here. The Crescent City and ACOTAR worlds are now officially connected and getting increasingly intertwined.
Assassin Celaena Sardothien is offered her freedom if she wins a deadly competition to become the king's champion. The series that established Maas's signature style and protagonist archetype.
The third Maas universe — and the one that shows how far she's developed as a writer. Reading all three Maas series is its own reward: watching the evolution across a decade of work.
Poppy, the Maiden chosen by the gods, has lived her whole life under sacred rules. Then Hawke joins her guard, and everything she has been told about the world begins to unravel.
The closest structural match to Crescent City: forbidden romance, hidden mythology, a heroine who turns out to be much more than she was told, and a love interest with secrets. Enormously popular for the same reasons.
Alina Starkov discovers she harbours a power that could save her country — and is swept into the court of the Darkling, a powerful general who wants her abilities for his own reasons.
The Grishaverse is the other dominant fantasy universe in the romantasy space. Shadow and Bone is the origin story; Six of Crows (the heist duology) is the masterpiece.
Violet Sorrengail is forced by her general mother to enter Basgiath War College's rider quadrant — where dragons choose their bonded and the survival rate is not discussed. Then she meets Xaden Riorson.
Currently the other dominant force in romantasy. The forbidden romance, the secrets behind the mythology, the protagonist who is tougher than anyone expected — all the same pleasures as Crescent City at pace.
Clary Fray can see the demons nobody else notices and discovers on her 16th birthday that she belongs to the world of Shadowhunters. Clare has built the most expansive urban fantasy universe in YA.
Crescent City and the Shadowhunter Chronicles share DNA: a contemporary city setting, hidden supernatural worlds, a sprawling cast, and the sense of a mythology that keeps expanding.
In Atlanta, waves of magic periodically shut down technology. Mercenary Kate Daniels navigates a city split between supernatural factions, wielding a sword and a sharper mouth.
The urban fantasy that most resembles Crescent City's energy: a competent, funny heroine, a romantic interest who is genuinely her equal, and a world that keeps expanding as the series progresses.