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8 Books Like The Last King of Faerie
Faerie makes a good trap for Dru Blackthorn. She has to read a prince whose attention puts her in danger, while Kit and Ty have to trust each other again to investigate a disappearance. The books below pick up different parts of that story. Some stay with faerie courts and their rules. Others ask what happens when the person you rely on is also the person you have reason to fear.
Read my review of The Last King of Faerie by Cassandra Clare.
Cassandra Clare’s books and reading guides
The full shortlist
Why each book belongs here
The earlier books matter in a few of these stories. The Stolen Heir returns to Holly Black’s Elfhame, while The Darkest Part of the Forest stands on its own. Sword Catcher begins in a separate world, even though it comes from the same author as The Last King of Faerie.
1
The Cruel Prince
- Similar because
- Dru enters a court where a prince’s attention can put her at risk. Jude Duarte, a human brought up among the faeries of Elfhame, has also learned to read danger in gestures of favor and contempt. Her place in the court is never secure.
- Different because
- Jude wants a foothold in the High Court. Her contest with Prince Cardan takes shape through ambition, humiliation, and the risk of civil war. It’s the beginning of The Folk of the Air, where winning political leverage matters more than repairing old friendships.
2
The Stolen Heir
- Similar because
- Kit and Ty have to cooperate with years of hurt between them. Suren, the former child queen of the Court of Teeth, has her own reasons to mistrust Oak, the prince who asks her to join a mission into the north.
- Different because
- The journey puts Suren’s history with the Court of Teeth at the center. Oak was once meant to marry her, and the prospect of going back makes his motives as important as their destination. This opens a duology after The Folk of the Air. The earlier trilogy gives Oak’s position in Elfhame more context.
3
A Dark and Hollow Star
- Similar because
- Shuttleworth places faerie courts alongside a recognizable human city. Like the disappearance that brings Kit and Ty back together, a string of killings forces characters with different loyalties to pool what they know.
- Different because
- Toronto and the murder investigation give the book its shape. Arlo, a half-fae outcast, is one of four queer leads whose separate lives come together around the case. It opens the Hollow Star Saga and asks you to learn several factions and perspectives at once.
4
Legendborn
- Similar because
- Bree Matthews has a personal reason to look past the version of events a secret magical order gives her. Like Clare’s returning characters, she has to work inside a world with rules and allegiances shaped long before she could have a say in them.
- Different because
- Bree investigates her mother’s death at UNC-Chapel Hill. The order traces its power to Arthurian legend, while Bree’s questions draw her toward her own family’s history and Southern Black traditions. It begins a new series, with grief and inherited power at the center of the mystery.
5
An Enchantment of Ravens
- Similar because
- Dru’s dealings with Ash put attraction and danger close together. Isobel learns what that proximity can cost when she paints human sorrow in the eyes of Rook, the autumn prince, and gives his court a vulnerability it can exploit.
- Different because
- Painting matters because the fae depend on mortals for the things they cannot make. The portrait sends Isobel and Rook into faerie territory together, where survival and growing affection depend on each other. It’s a standalone romance built around one pair and the rules of a fairy tale.
6
Sword Catcher
- Similar because
- Clare gives loyalty a cost in both books. In Castellane, Kel has grown up beside Prince Conor and is expected to put himself in danger in the prince’s place. Affection and resentment come from the same arrangement.
- Different because
- The relationship between a prince and his double shares the book with Lin, a physician whose community holds a rare trace of magic. This is adult city fantasy with diplomacy, social divisions, and scarce magic. It opens The Chronicles of Castellane, a separate series with its own institutions to learn.
7
The Darkest Part of the Forest
- Similar because
- Dru’s independence matters in part because of her place among siblings. Hazel and Ben also grow up imagining distinct roles for themselves, as knight and bard, in a town that lives beside faeries. When the horned boy in the woods wakes, those childhood roles acquire real stakes.
- Different because
- Fairfold makes faerie danger local. The sleeping boy in his glass coffin is part of what visitors come to see, even though Hazel knows what the town’s magic can cost. It’s a standalone story, with the siblings and the town’s bargains giving the folklore its intimacy.
8
The Iron King
- Similar because
- A disappearance drives the plot in both books. Meghan Chase goes looking for her little brother and finds herself tied by birth to a faerie king. As with Dru, entering Faerie puts a young woman in danger among people who know far more about its politics than she does.
- Different because
- Meghan’s search is a first encounter with the faerie world, so the reader discovers the courts and the rival powers alongside her. There’s a romance with a prince woven into the rescue. This is the first Iron Fey book, with a family emergency supplying a more direct goal than Clare’s reunion of an established cast.
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