Books Like Vampire Academy
If you finished Vampire Academy and want more vampires, academies and war colleges, forbidden love, start here. Each pick shares at least two tropes with it, and we've rated every one for spice and darkness so you know what you're getting into.
For reference, Vampire Academy is:
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The picks
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1. Crave
Shares: vampires, academies and war colleges, forbidden love
After her parents die, Grace moves to her uncle's boarding school in Alaska, which is full of vampires, witches and dragons. Jaxon is the brooding one. Long and very Twilight, and the guy most fans actually ship doesn't show up properly until book two.
- Vampires
- Academies and War Colleges
- Forbidden Love
- Possessive Hero
Content warnings
Death of a loved one, Murder, Kidnapping
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2. A Tempest of Tea
Shares: vampires, found family, forbidden love
Arthie runs a tearoom by day and a blood bar for vampires by night, and saving it means pulling off a heist with a crew of misfits. Her history with Jin simmers in the background. Ornate prose and a slow first act.
- Vampires
- Found Family
- Forbidden Love
- Morally Gray
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Murder
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3. A Discovery of Witches
Shares: vampires, forbidden love
Diana is an Oxford historian and reluctant witch who calls up a bewitched manuscript at the Bodleian, and suddenly every creature in town is watching her, including the very old vampire Matthew Clairmont. Lots of wine, research and yoga. Slow, and people love it anyway.
- Witches
- Vampires
- Forbidden Love
- Possessive Hero
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Murder, Stalking
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4. City of Bones
Shares: forbidden love, found family
Clary watches three teenagers kill something in a New York club that nobody else can see, and that's her introduction to the Shadowhunters, Jace in particular. Snarky and very 2007, and the book's infamous twist fueled a decade of forum fights.
- Demons
- Love Triangle
- Forbidden Love
- Found Family
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Murder, Kidnapping
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5. The Last King of Faerie
Shares: forbidden love, found family
Dru Blackthorn gets kidnapped from a nightclub and held prisoner in Faerie by Ash Morgenstern, while Kit and Ty have to stop sulking at each other long enough to go on a quest. The start of the last Shadowhunters trilogy. YA heat, out November 3.
- Fae
- Captor and Captive
- Forbidden Love
- Found Family
Content warnings
Kidnapping, Graphic violence
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6. Assistant to the Villain
Shares: forbidden love, found family
Evie needs a job, and the Villain needs an assistant who won't flinch at heads on spikes. It started as the author's TikTok skits and reads like it: an office comedy that's goofy, cozy and not remotely dark despite the title.
- Villain Gets the Girl
- Slow Burn
- Forbidden Love
- Found Family
Content warnings
Graphic violence
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7. Clockwork Angel
Shares: found family, forbidden love
Tessa sails to Victorian London to find her brother and gets taken by the Dark Sisters, who force her to learn she can shapeshift. The London Institute's Shadowhunters pull her out, and Will and Jem become the love triangle Clare fans cry about most.
- Demons
- Love Triangle
- Found Family
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Kidnapping, Death of a loved one, Graphic violence, Drug or alcohol abuse
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8. Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Shares: forbidden love, found family
Karou is a blue-haired art student in Prague whose foster father is a monster, literally, and whose errands go through doors that open anywhere. Then an angel shows up and the doors start burning. The back half turns into a long flashback, and that's where the heartbreak is.
- Forbidden Love
- Demons
- Found Family
Content warnings
War, Genocide, Graphic violence, Death of a loved one
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9. The Darkest Part of the Forest
Shares: found family, forbidden love
In Fairfold, tourists come to gawk at a horned boy asleep in a glass coffin in the woods. Then Hazel finds the coffin smashed and empty. Two romances, one of them queer, and a brother-sister story that hits just as hard.
- Fae
- Curses
- Found Family
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Physical or emotional abuse
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10. Wicked
Shares: forbidden love, found family
Ivy Morgan hunts fae in the French Quarter, and the Order's new transfer Ren Owens is way too charming to trust. New Orleans urban fantasy with classic Armentrout banter, lighter than Blood and Ash and more fun about it.
- Fae
- Forbidden Love
- Slow Burn
- Touch Her and Die
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Murder, Death of a loved one
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11. Zodiac Academy: The Awakening
Shares: academies and war colleges, forbidden love
Twins Tory and Darcy Vega find out they're the lost heirs to the Fae throne and get dropped into Zodiac Academy, where four Celestial Heirs want them gone. Book one is mostly bullying and pranks, which is a dealbreaker for some. Stay and it becomes a nine-book obsession.
- Academies and War Colleges
- Enemies to Lovers
- Fae
- Forbidden Love
Content warnings
Physical or emotional abuse, Graphic violence, Drug or alcohol abuse
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12. Daughter of No Worlds
Shares: forbidden love, found family
A former slave with a talent for magic gets recruited into an order of warriors. Broadbent before Nyaxia, and the slow burn here is properly slow.
- Slow Burn
- Forbidden Love
- Found Family
- Deadly Trials
Content warnings
Physical or emotional abuse, Graphic violence, War
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13. From Blood and Ash
Shares: vampires, forbidden love
Poppy is the Maiden, veiled and untouchable, and her new guard Hawke is far too interested in her. Very talky, very horny, and the twist lands if you don't see it coming.
- Vampires
- Enemies to Lovers
- Forbidden Love
- Morally Gray
Content warnings
Graphic violence, Murder, Physical or emotional abuse, Kidnapping
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