Books Like Throne of Glass

Dual POV between a Scholar girl and a soldier in an empire modelled on brutal Rome. Both protagonists are trapped by the system, both have to fight their way through impossible circumstances. The training sequences and competition arc mirror Throne of Glass but with significantly higher stakes from page one. Caveat: much less romance-focused than Maas. The tension is there but the series earns it slowly.

Katsa is the best direct predecessor to Celaena — a young woman with a lethal gift who is used as a weapon by those in power and has to find her own identity. The political intrigue is tighter and the romance is healthier than most in this space. Caveat: published in 2008, before the romantasy genre codified its tropes — it reads somewhat differently but holds up well.

A mortal girl in a Fae court who refuses to be powerless — the political scheming here is more intricate and the love interest more genuinely threatening than in most romantasy. Jude and Cardan have the same antagonistic push-pull dynamic as Celaena and Dorian/Chaol, with sharper edges. Caveat: less spice, more brain. The romance is earned over three books, not rushed.

A girl from the lower class inserted into a royal court where one wrong step means death. The power reveal, the love triangle, and the political betrayals hit similar beats to early Throne of Glass — the sense that everyone is using you and you have to figure out who to trust. Caveat: the series loses momentum in the later books and the love triangle is divisive.

If you've finished Throne of Glass and want the same author at her most romance-focused, ACOTAR is the natural next step. Maas applies the same structure — a female protagonist pulled into a dangerous magical world, a slow-burn romance with a morally grey male lead, stakes that escalate across the series — but leans harder into the heat. Caveat: even more romance-heavy than ToG. ACOMAF is where the series becomes exceptional.

A girl discovers a rare power that makes her suddenly important to everyone around her — and dangerous. The Grishaverse starts here but peaks with Six of Crows, which shares the world. The political tension, the morally grey Darkling, and the sense of a world in crisis all echo the Throne of Glass experience. Caveat: the Shadow and Bone trilogy is the weakest part of the Grishaverse — Six of Crows is significantly better.