Books Like Zodiac Academy: 7 Picks, for Fans and Quitters

Looking for books like Zodiac Academy? Start with one question: did you finish all nine and miss it, or did you quit somewhere around book 7? Your answer picks the list. If you loved it, take Fourth Wing for the academy and the dragons, or stay in Solaria with Dark Fae, the authors' own spin-off. If you quit, take The Bridge Kingdom, a finished six-book series an r/Romantasy reader handed someone who'd just given up on ZA.

First, the heat you're matching. The Awakening, book 1, sits at 3 on our spice scale, placed from Common Sense Media's note of "One explicitly detailed sex scene", and CSM rates it 17+ for a series that "includes explicit sex and extreme bullying". That number covers book 1 only; we haven't placed books 2 to 9. The seven picks below run from 1 to 4, with one we can't place yet, and the table names whose words each number comes from.

Books like Zodiac Academy, at a glance

Books like Zodiac Academy, if the academy rivalry hooked you

Simon & Schuster, which distributes the current King's Hollow editions, lists ten tags under "Perfect for fans of" on the book 1 page, among them "Dark Academia", "Enemies to lovers", "Bully romance" and "Fated/Rejected mates". The book 1 blurb sets the tone with "Vampires bite weaker students in the corridors." That's the bar a lookalike has to clear, and it's a high one.

Here's the catch for this section. u/jammiesonmyhammies (18 points) put the problem plainly: "I absolutely love a good bully romance and ZA delivers. I've been chasing the high since I finished the series but have yet to find anything on ZA level." None of the three picks below is sold as a bully romance: the word isn't on the author's or publisher's page we quote for any of them. Each one keeps a different piece, so pick the piece you miss most.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

The author's page calls Basgiath "a war college for dragon riders", so you keep the school and you keep the dragons. It's a step hotter than ZA's book 1: a 4 on our scale, from Common Sense Media's "There are a few fairly explicit sex scenes", rated 16+.

Don't expect the same book, though. u/RaspberryAvocado (1 point) came at it from the other side in the "yay or nay" thread: "I did not like it. I thought I would, because I loved Fourth Wing," and wondered if "maybe it was the bullying". So the overlap is real but partial. The Empyrean series isn't finished either: Marie Claire reports that "as for books four and five, their names and release dates are still unknown."

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Crave is ZA's setup at a lower heat and a younger age. Its narrator says "My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy," and that among the students there "the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me". Common Sense Media rates it 14+ and describes "Many scenes of kissing and groping and biting necks for pleasure that are quite detailed," which we place at 2. It's six books, Crave to Cherish, so it's a long run too. Pick it for a teen reader who wants ZA's school without the explicit scene in ZA's book 1 (and, as with ZA, we've placed Crave's book 1 only).

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

If the hook was the cruel boy at the top of the pecking order, this is the cleanest version of it: Jude, raised in Faerie's High Court, up against "Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King". There's no academy and almost no heat, a 1 on our scale from Common Sense Media's note of "passionate embraces". It's also short next to ZA: three books, the last out in 2019. We've got more like it in books like The Cruel Prince.

If it was the vampires, shifters and fated mates

S&S's tag list also has "Dragons, Vampires, Werewolves, Sirens, Pegasus and more". Two picks keep the monsters and drop the school.

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Bride is a vampire and werewolf marriage of convenience, and Hazelwood's own content note lists "Explicit and graphic sexual content", a 3 on our scale, the same number as ZA's book 1. It's the only one of the seven picks that finishes one couple's story in one book. Goodreads lists Mate (2025) as a companion novel, so there's no nine-book commitment. Pick it if you loved the werewolf and vampire politics and want an ending this week.

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

Macmillan's pitch is "The Hunger Games meets vampires": a human girl raised by the vampire king, fighting through a tournament held by the goddess of death. u/0goldn1 (2 points), who "binged ZA up to book 8 and was just emotionally exhausted", recommended it in the DNF thread and wrote that "all the spice is delicious". That's a reader's word, not a note we can place on our scale, so it has no number here. It isn't short, either: the Crowns of Nyaxia series has a sixth main book on Broadbent's reading order.

If you DNF'd Zodiac Academy: books like it, but finished or shorter

You're in large company. Goodreads has 493,927 ratings for The Awakening and 121,079 for Restless Stars, book 9, on October 20: about a quarter as many. Every book after the first has fewer than the one before it. Ratings aren't readers, but the slope is hard to miss.

Image: FaeShelf chart, from the Goodreads Zodiac Academy series page, checked October 20, 2026

The quitters don't all quit at the same place, either. Thirteen of the 69 top-level answers in the "yay or nay" thread say where they stopped: three in book 1, four in books 2 and 3, two at book 4 and four at book 6 or later. Book 1 also has the lowest Goodreads average of the nine on October 20, 3.82, which fits a series whose later books get rated mostly by the readers who kept going.

The DNF thread that prompted this list came on October 15. Its poster "just finished book 7", gave up, and asked for "series' that will be long but SATISFYING", with "spice but not in a distracting way". Two answers fit that brief.

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

A warrior princess is sent to the Bridge Kingdom as a bride "under the guise of peace", and the series is done at six books; Penguin Random House calls book 6 "the searing finale". Heat is a 4 on our scale, from Jensen's FAQ: "mild sexual content that gradually gets spicier with each book", with "typically only two-three scenes per book," fully on the page. That's close to what the DNF poster asked for: the spice climbs book by book, but the scene count stays low.

The catch comes from u/ellixe (3 points), who recommended it in that thread: "It gets interesting around 70% of the first book," and "Book 2-4 are the best." So give book 1 longer than you'd like. Our Danielle L. Jensen books in order guide covers the timeline trap in book 3.

The Road of Bones by Demi Winters

The thread's top answer (u/Agreeable_Box136, 25 points) came from someone who "made it halfway through book 7 and couldn't do it anymore", and its second paragraph began "Try Road of Bones", ahead of two other series. It's a Viking mercenary saga planned at five books, and Winters's warnings flag "graphic sex" for readers 18 and up, a 3 on our scale. The same reader added a fair warning about all three picks: "None of them are complete series." Book 4, Embers of Chaos, is on pre-order and book 5 has no title yet. Pick it if what you want is length; skip it if you need an ending now.

More Solaria: the Zodiac Academy spin-offs, and what's out in November

Here's the twist for quitters. Two readers in the "yay or nay" thread who gave up on ZA loved a spin-off. u/jmd223 (1 point): "So I DNF'd ZA, I couldn't get into it. Buttt I just finished Ruthless Boys and devoured it." u/snugginator (2 points) stopped at book 4, then "just finished darkmore after noticing the final book was finally out and I loved it." Our Zodiac Academy series page has the main books; here's what sits around them.

Start with Dark Fae if you liked ZA's academy and want more than one love interest; S&S says it "can be read independently", and u/Sharp-Rhubarb-1058 suggested it as the shorter way in ("It is RH", meaning reverse harem). Start with Caged Wolf if the school was the part you could do without. Never Keep is the one for Fourth Wing fans, with a war college of its own, but book 4 isn't due until August 2027.

The nearest date is Lightwing, book 2 of Crown of Hearts and Chaos, 13 days out from this post, at 528 pages; it's on our November 2026 release list. Next, S&S lists Zodiac Academy 10: On the Cursed Day of Christmas, "Following on from the events of Restless Stars", at $32.99, shipping on or around November 10. Goodreads counts it as book 10, but it's sold as an advent calendar, "24 chapters, sealed behind perforated pages", so you "open a chapter a day on the run up to Christmas". Dark Fae's new paperback follows on November 17.

Does Zodiac Academy get better? Readers split

It depends on what you mean by better. The DNF poster quit after book 7, worn down by "the literal beatings these characters have been taking". u/itmustbeniiiiice (9 points) answered: "I mean, book 8 and 9 of ZA are when things actually get better, but respect." u/Listen_Mother (6 points) read that as a verdict on the story: "That's crazy to need to get 8-9 books deep for it to get good." The original commenter's reply, also at 9 points, set it straight: "That's not what I said." Their "better" referred to the poster's "literal beatings" and "mental turmoil", and "ZA as a series hits the ground running and slows towards the end." So by that reader's account, the last two books go easier on the characters, and the pace doesn't pick up.

The "yay or nay" thread from September 15 leans yes, on its own terms. Its top answer, at 141 points, didn't defend the writing at all:

That's u/bergskey: "I DEVOURED them. It was the ultimate trash tv, popcorn book." If that's why you loved it, no list of better-written books will scratch the itch, and the spin-offs are your best bet. If you quit because it felt like a loop, the finished series above are the cure.

Our take: books like Zodiac Academy, if we could hand you one

For fans, Dark Fae: same world, same authors, a finished five-book series, and the spin-off one reader who'd DNF'd ZA "devoured". For quitters, The Bridge Kingdom: six books, done, hotter on our scale than ZA's book 1, with two or three scenes a book that Jensen says get spicier as the series goes. For anyone who wants out of Solaria but still wants the school and the dragons, Fourth Wing, as long as you know book 4 has no date.

Related Reading

• Books like Fourth Wing: more dragon riders and war colleges, with age and heat where we have a source.
• Vampire romantasy books: if Bride and Serpent were the picks that caught you.
• Completed romantasy series: finished series only, for readers done waiting.
• Low-spice romantasy books: for readers who want the heat below Crave's 2.

References

• Simon & Schuster: Zodiac Academy 1: The Awakening
• Simon & Schuster: Zodiac Academy 10: On the Cursed Day of Christmas
• Simon & Schuster: Dark Fae
• Simon & Schuster: Caged Wolf
• Simon & Schuster: Never Keep
• Simon & Schuster: Oracle Bay
• Simon & Schuster: Hollow
• Simon & Schuster: Lightwing
• Goodreads: Zodiac Academy series
• Goodreads: Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac series
• Goodreads: Darkmore Penitentiary series
• Goodreads: Sins of the Zodiac series
• Common Sense Media: The Awakening
• Common Sense Media: Fourth Wing
• Common Sense Media: Crave
• Common Sense Media: The Cruel Prince
• Rebecca Yarros: The Empyrean
• Marie Claire: Fourth Wing series, everything to know
• Entangled Publishing: Crave
• Hachette Book Group: The Cruel Prince
• Ali Hazelwood: content notes for Bride
• Macmillan: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
• Carissa Broadbent: reading orders
• Danielle L. Jensen: Contact & FAQ
• Penguin Random House: The Tempest Blade
• Demi Winters: The Road of Bones
• r/Romantasy: Zodiac academy, yay or nay?
• r/Romantasy: DNF'd Zodiac Academy, now what