Books like Serpent & Dove
What should you read after Shelby Mahurin’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Shelby Mahurin
- YA romantic fantasy
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Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Serpent & Dove
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchA Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
The book most Serpent & Dove readers arrive from or leave for — a mortal girl trapped in a court that wants her dead, and an enemies-to-lovers arc carrying the whole novel.
- Slow burn that pays off
- Forced to marry your enemy
- A heroine who won't behave
- Book two changes the pairing
Best for the marriage bargainCruel Beauty
Rosamund Hodge
Married off to the monster her family swore to kill, and expected to murder him herself. Hodge's version of your setup is shorter, stranger, and stuffed with Greek myth.
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Magic that charges a price
- Slow burn that pays off
- Dense mythology, occasionally confusing
Great matchThe Wrath & the Dawn
Renée Ahdieh
She marries the king who has been killing his brides, intending revenge, and keeps failing to hate him. Same pleasure of watching a vow quietly come apart.
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Banter as foreplay
- A heroine who won't behave
- A duology; ends mid-story
Great matchShadow and Bone
Leigh Bardugo
Bardugo's Grisha are the state-sanctioned version of Lou's problem: power that everyone wants to own, and a girl discovering she is the asset.
- Magic that charges a price
- A church that hunts women
- A heroine who won't behave
- A love triangle, not a marriage
Great matchCaraval
Stephanie Garber
If the pull was the con of it — Lou lying to everyone, constantly — Caraval is a whole novel about a girl inside a game nobody will explain the rules of.
- A heroine who won't behave
- Magic that charges a price
- Banter as foreplay
- Magic runs on atmosphere
Best for the banterThe Cruel Prince
Holly Black
Jude and Cardan trade insults with the same charge Lou and Reid do, except Holly Black lets her heroine be genuinely ruthless about it.
- Banter as foreplay
- A heroine who won't behave
- Slow burn that pays off
- Very little romance, yet
Best for the holy warWicked Saints
Emily A. Duncan
A cleric, a blood mage and a war fought over gods: Duncan takes the religion-versus-magic conflict Mahurin keeps in the background and drags it to the front, bleeding.
- A church that hunts women
- Magic that charges a price
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Considerably darker and gorier
Worth a look — with a warningAn Enchantment of Ravens
Margaret Rogerson
The same forbidden pairing across an unbridgeable line, compressed into one short standalone. Whether that is a relief or a letdown depends on how much you wanted the sprawl.
- Magic that charges a price
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Slow burn that pays off
- Romance develops very fast
Great matchChildren of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
A monarchy that spent a generation hunting magic out of its people, and the girl set on bringing it back. Bigger, angrier, and the romance still crosses enemy lines.
- A church that hunts women
- A heroine who won't behave
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Grief and violence throughout
Great matchThe Bone Season
Samantha Shannon
Another girl hiding what she is in a city that executes people for it, and another keeper she is not supposed to want. Denser worldbuilding than you are used to.
- A church that hunts women
- Found family of thieves
- Slow burn that pays off
- Heavy invented vocabulary
Great matchShatter Me
Tahereh Mafi
Mafi writes desire the way Mahurin does: overheated, unembarrassed, half of it in italics. Come for the tension rather than the dystopian scaffolding around it.
- Slow burn that pays off
- Banter as foreplay
- A heroine who won't behave
- Dystopia, not witchcraft
Best for magic with a priceKingdom of the Wicked
Kerri Maniscalco
A witch bargaining with a prince of Hell to avenge her sister: same arrangement where every spell costs something and the person helping you is the actual danger.
- Magic that charges a price
- Banter as foreplay
- Forced to marry your enemy
- The mystery plot moves slowly
Worth a look — with a warningHush, Hush
The older, blunter ancestor of forbidden love with something that hunts you. Worth knowing where the trope came from, though the power balance between them has aged badly.
- A witch hunter who doesn't know
- Forced to marry your enemy
- Slow burn that pays off
- The love interest behaves badly
What should you read after Serpent & Dove?
Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas — the book most Serpent & Dove readers arrive from or leave for — a mortal girl trapped in a court that wants her dead, and an enemies-to-lovers arc carrying the whole novel.
If what stayed with you was forced to marry your enemy, read Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge instead: married off to the monster her family swore to kill, and expected to murder him herself. Hodge's version of your setup is shorter, stranger, and stuffed with Greek myth. The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh is the other strong option — she marries the king who has been killing his brides, intending revenge, and keeps failing to hate him. Same pleasure of watching a vow quietly come apart.
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