If you loved watching Alina get drilled by Baghra, mastering amplifiers and kefta-worthy control while politics swirled around the Little Palace, you’ll click with the Scholomance. In A Deadly Education, El faces a cutthroat magical school where survival is the curriculum—alliances are as vital as spells, and every lesson could kill you. That same mix of intense training, social maneuvering, and power honing you saw between Alina’s lessons and Grisha court dynamics is turned up to eleven here.

Alina’s discovery that she’s the Sun Summoner—and the tug-of-war between fear of her gift and the need to wield it—mirrors Katsa’s journey in Graceling. Like Alina, Katsa is marked by an extraordinary ability that others want to use, and she has to decide who she is beyond what power makes her. If you were drawn to Alina stepping out from mapmaker to living legend after the skiff and Fold revelations, Katsa’s hard-won self-definition and agency will resonate.

If the backstage maneuvering in Ravka—the Darkling’s whispers, royal agendas, and how every feast and audience hides a blade—kept you hooked, The Priory of the Orange Tree delivers a feast of rival courts and holy orders playing long games. You’ll find the same slow-burn power plays you saw from the Darkling’s faction versus the monarchy, only across multiple kingdoms with assassins, dragon diplomacy, and queens whose survival shapes the world.

The Fold’s living darkness and the way the Darkling’s power tempts and corrupts give Uprooted a perfect echo. Here, the malevolent Wood warps everything it touches, much like the Fold’s volcra-haunted void. As Agnieszka learns perilous magic beside the prickly wizard known as the Dragon, you’ll get that same eerie, seductive edge you felt when Alina first unleashed sunlight on the skiff and realized how closely light and shadow entwine.

If your heart was in your throat over Alina and Mal—childhood loyalty strained by destiny, the Darkling’s pull, and the stag’s choice—Daughter of Smoke and Bone brings that sweeping, star-crossed ache. Karou’s mysterious past collides with Akiva’s duty, and their connection ignites wars and impossible choices. It’s the same blend of electric chemistry and world-shifting consequences that turned Alina’s private feelings into public stakes.