If the slow-burn spark between Paedyn and Prince Kai hooked you—especially as her secret (faking a Seer’s power) collides with his duty in the Purging Trials—you’ll love the knife-edged chemistry between Jude Duarte and Prince Cardan in The Cruel Prince. Like Illusia’s elite courts, Elfhame runs on treachery and allure; Jude’s climb from powerless mortal to power player mirrors Paedyn’s gambits for survival, and every barb Jude trades with Cardan hits with the same delicious, dangerous charge you felt whenever Paedyn and Kai circled each other.

Drawn to the deadly spectacle of the Purging Trials—where Paedyn, an Ordinary pretending to be a Seer, has to improvise or die under the gaze of Illusia’s elite? The Hunger Games delivers that same pulse: Katniss is thrust into a televised arena where every choice is a bet against the Capitol’s rigged system, much like Paedyn bluffing through each challenge while Prince Kai watches. The brutal set pieces, survival strategizing, and performative alliances echo Paedyn’s fight to live another day.

If Illusia’s stratified world—Ordinaries at the bottom, Elites ruling from above—grabbed you, Red Queen hits the same nerve. Mare Barrow is a commoner who stumbles into a court of blood-powered nobility, forced to hide what she is while navigating princes Cal and Maven. The duplicity, public pageantry, and class cruelty mirror Paedyn’s tightrope walk in the palace, right down to the peril of being exposed in front of a crown that would rather see you erased.

Paedyn’s willingness to steal, deceive, and outmaneuver Elites to endure the Purging Trials echoes the darker path in The Young Elites. Adelina Amouteru—a survivor marked by power and pain—makes choices as sharp as any of Paedyn’s cons, and the story isn’t afraid to ask what survival costs your soul. If you liked following Paedyn as she balances feeling and ferocity around Prince Kai and the court, Adelina’s morally fraught rise will grip you just as hard.

If watching Paedyn and Kai move from suspicion to reluctant trust—sparring in corridors and during Trial tests—was your sweet spot, Serpent & Dove doubles down on that tension. Witch Lou and witch-hunter Reid are trapped in a forced partnership that crackles with banter, bruised loyalties, and undeniable pull. The way secrets unravel and affection deepens under pressure mirrors the charged evolution of Paedyn and Kai inside Illusia’s deadly games.