If the way Jude plays the palace—blackmailing Cardan, outmaneuvering Balekin at the coronation massacre, and cutting secret bargains with the Court of Shadows—had you hooked, you’ll love how An Ember in the Ashes ratchets up the stakes. Laia and Elias navigate an empire of spies, Masks, and Commandants where every oath has a knife behind it, and power changes hands in midnight meetings and public blood. It’s the same intoxicating mix of palace politics and peril that made Jude crowning Cardan such a rush.

Loved how Jude lies, poisons, and puppeteers a king—yet you still cheer for her? Six of Crows delivers a whole crew with that energy. Kaz Brekker plans like Jude on her sharpest day, turning enemies and allies alike into leverage, while Inej, Nina, and the rest grapple with their own codes. If the thrill for you was Jude’s calculated betrayals (like using Cardan’s weaknesses to win the throne), this heist of impossible odds and sharper ethics will scratch the exact same itch.

If Jude killing Valerian, training on poison at Madoc’s table, and pulling the strings on Cardan’s crown made you relish a heroine who gets dirty to win, The Young Elites leans even darker. Adelina’s rise is all teeth and shadows as she chooses vengeance and control over innocence. It’s that same heady descent into power—like Jude claiming the seneschal’s secrets with the Roach and the Bomb—except the cost is steeper and the mirrors more cracked.

If Jude and Cardan’s knife-edged banter, stolen kisses, and betrayals—culminating in that deliciously treacherous coronation twist—were your catnip, Serpent & Dove brings the same slow-burn volatility. A witch and a witch-hunter are forced into marriage; every exchange is a dare, every secret a fuse. Like Jude and Cardan’s push-pull of desire and power, Lou and Reid’s attraction ignites right where duty should shut it down.

If Faerie’s revels felt beautiful and cruel—the Court of Shadows’ assassinations, Balekin’s brutal pageantry, Jude’s bargains that always cut—Wicked Saints drenches you in that same gorgeous menace. Blood magic, saints and monsters, and a slow, dangerous entanglement with a boy who might be worse than a prince of knives capture the tone you loved: sumptuous, secretive, and always one choice from catastrophe.