Books like A Darker Shade of Magic

Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows assembles a crew of six outcasts in the Grishaverse for an impossible heist: breaking into an impenetrable fortress. Kaz Brekker, a criminal prodigy with a cane and a reputation, leads a team that includes a sharpshooter, a spy, a runaway, a demolitions expert, and a Grisha soldier.

Like A Darker Shade of Magic, the novel thrives on the chemistry between its ensemble cast, and Bardugo gives each character a distinct voice, backstory, and set of skills that contribute to both the plot and the group dynamic. The heist structure keeps the pacing tight, with constant reversals and revelations that reward attentive readers.

Both Schwab and Bardugo write morally complex protagonists who operate outside the law but live by their own strict codes, and both set their stories in richly imagined worlds where magic is a resource that powerful people fight to control. Kaz and Lila would get along terrifyingly well, and readers who love one crew will immediately want to join the other.

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus centers on Le Cirque des Reves, a black-and-white circus that appears without announcement and contains wonders that defy explanation. Behind its enchantments, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, compete in a contest neither fully understands, creating increasingly elaborate displays of magic that blur the line between art and power.

Like A Darker Shade of Magic, the novel takes a creative approach to its magic system, treating it as something aesthetic and personal rather than purely functional. Both books feature multiple timelines and perspectives that gradually converge, rewarding readers who enjoy piecing a story together from different angles.

Morgenstern writes with a lush, sensory style that makes every tent and performance feel vivid, and the romance between Celia and Marco develops through their shared magic rather than conventional courtship. The Night Circus moves at a more dreamlike pace than Schwab's propulsive plotting, but both novels understand that the best fantasy makes you believe the impossible is happening right in front of you.

Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone drops orphan mapmaker Alina Starkov into the dangerous world of the Grisha, soldiers who wield different forms of elemental magic in a Russia-inspired fantasy nation. When Alina reveals a rare power that could save her country from the Shadow Fold, a swath of darkness filled with monsters, she is thrust into the opulent and treacherous world of the Grisha court.

Like A Darker Shade of Magic, the novel builds a magic system with clear rules and costs, and both books feature protagonists who discover they possess abilities that make them targets. Bardugo's world draws from Slavic culture and military history, giving it a texture and specificity that mirrors Schwab's grounding of her fantasy in different versions of London.

The Darkling, Alina's enigmatic mentor and potential enemy, provides the kind of morally ambiguous antagonist that Schwab handles so well in the Shades of Magic series. Shadow and Bone is the first of a trilogy, and each book expands the world and raises the stakes in satisfying ways.

V.E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a young Frenchwoman who, in 1714, makes a deal with a dark entity to live forever but is cursed so that no one who meets her can remember her.

For three hundred years, Addie wanders through history, leaving no lasting mark, until she walks into a New York bookshop and the young man behind the counter recognizes her. Schwab brings the same precise world-building and character-driven storytelling that makes A Darker Shade of Magic so addictive, but here she applies it to a story about time, memory, and the marks we leave on the world. Addie shares Lila Bard's stubbornness and refusal to accept the limits placed on her, and Schwab writes both women with a blend of tenderness and steel.

The novel moves between historical periods with fluid grace, and Schwab finds specific, concrete details in each era that make Addie's long life feel lived rather than summarized. Readers who love Schwab's voice in the Shades of Magic series will find it here in a different key but with the same emotional resonance.

Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys introduces Blue Sargent, the only non-psychic in a family of clairvoyants, and four boys from a wealthy prep school who are searching for the body of a long-dead Welsh king along a ley line in rural Virginia. The magic in Stiefvater's world is tied to the landscape itself, and the relationships between the five main characters drive the story as much as the supernatural mystery.

Like A Darker Shade of Magic, the novel blends different kinds of magic with grounded character dynamics, and Stiefvater writes group chemistry with the same skill that Schwab brings to Kell and Lila's partnership. The prose has a distinctive rhythm, lyrical without being slow, and Stiefvater grounds her magical elements in the specific geography and culture of rural Virginia.

Both books feature characters from different social classes who form bonds across those divides, and both treat loyalty as a theme worth taking seriously. The Raven Boys is the first of four, and the series deepens its magic and its relationships with each installment.

S.A. Chakraborty's The City of Brass transports readers to the hidden city of Daevabad, where djinn, marid, and other beings from Middle Eastern mythology live in a volatile political landscape.

Nahri, a con artist in eighteenth-century Cairo, accidentally summons a djinn warrior and finds herself pulled into a world of ancient conflicts and shifting alliances. Like A Darker Shade of Magic, the novel features a protagonist navigating a magical world she did not know existed, and both books ground their fantasy in specific cultural and historical settings rather than generic medieval Europe. Chakraborty builds her magical politics with the same care that Schwab applies to the relationships between her four Londons, and the tensions between different djinn tribes mirror the conflicts between Schwab's parallel worlds.

Nahri shares Lila's street smarts and adaptability, and both women must learn quickly to survive in worlds where power follows rules they were never taught. The novel is the first of a trilogy, and each book adds new layers of complexity to its world and its characters.

Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass introduces Celaena Sardothien, a notorious assassin imprisoned in a slave labor camp who is offered freedom if she can win a competition to become the king's personal champion. Like Lila Bard in A Darker Shade of Magic, Celaena is fierce, skilled, and unwilling to play by anyone else's rules.

Maas builds a world where magic has been banned but refuses to stay suppressed, and the political intrigue at court provides the same kind of tension that Schwab creates between her parallel worlds. The competition structure keeps the plot moving quickly, and Celaena's relationships with the prince and the captain of the guard add romantic tension without slowing the action. Both Schwab and Maas write fight scenes with clarity and weight, making their protagonists' physical abilities feel earned rather than convenient.

Throne of Glass is the first in a long series that expands significantly in scope, taking Celaena from a castle tournament to a continent-spanning conflict. Readers who love Schwab's combination of action, magic, and sharp-tongued heroines will find a natural home here.