Books like House of Earth and Blood

Alex Stern is the least likely person to end up at Yale: a dropout with a criminal record and the ability to see ghosts. She gets recruited into Lethe, the ninth secret society, tasked with monitoring the other eight as they perform rituals using real magic. Leigh Bardugo sets her murder mystery inside an institution built on old money and older power, creating the same layered city-over-ancient-magic feel that Maas builds in Lunathion.

Alex is pricklier than Bryce, more damaged and less willing to charm her way through situations, but both heroines use their outsider status to see what insiders overlook. Bardugo writes Yale's architecture and culture with the same specificity Maas brings to Crescent City's neighborhoods, making the setting function as a character. The mystery structure drives the plot forward with real urgency, and Bardugo drops clues that reward attentive readers without making the solution obvious.

The supernatural elements are grounded in historical occult tradition, giving the magic a weight that feels researched rather than invented. The supporting cast includes morally ambiguous allies whose true loyalties remain unclear. For HOEAB readers who want a murder mystery set in an institution hiding supernatural secrets, Ninth House is the sharpest match on this list.

Karen Marie Moning essentially wrote the template that Crescent City follows: a young woman arrives in a city she thinks she knows, discovers it is hiding a fae underworld, and gets pulled into a supernatural conflict she is uniquely equipped to fight. Mac Lane travels to Dublin to investigate her sister's murder, just as Bryce investigates Danika's, and both women find that the death leads them into a conspiracy far larger than they expected. Moning writes Dublin the way Maas writes Lunathion, as a living environment that changes as the supernatural bleeds through, with specific streets, pubs, and landmarks becoming battlegrounds.

The relationship between Mac and Jericho Barrons shares Hunt's trajectory: a powerful, secretive male lead who starts as an antagonist and becomes an essential partner through forced cooperation. Moning's pacing is tight, with each book in the Fever series ending on a hook that makes the next one impossible to resist. The fae mythology draws on Irish folklore, giving the supernatural elements cultural specificity that distinguishes them from generic fantasy.

Mac's voice evolves dramatically across the series, starting bright and naive and hardening into something fierce without losing its humor. For readers who loved HOEAB's combination of a real-feeling city, a sister's-murder mystery, and a dangerous love interest, Darkfever is the most direct ancestor.

From Blood and Ash takes a different structural approach than HOEAB, starting from a cloistered setting rather than an open city, but it delivers the same emotional core: a heroine grieving the loss of those she loves while uncovering a conspiracy that redefines her world. Poppy's identity as the Maiden keeps her isolated, making her first taste of freedom with Hawke feel as electric as Bryce's gradual opening up to Hunt. Armentrout writes the slow burn between Poppy and Hawke with attention to the specific moments of physical contact that build tension, using the Maiden's forbidden-touch restriction to charge every casual interaction.

The worldbuilding reveals itself in layers, with each new piece of information about the Ascended and their true nature recontextualizing what came before. Armentrout matches Maas's ability to write heroines who are both emotionally vulnerable and physically dangerous, with Poppy trained as a fighter even as she is kept in a gilded cage. The series expands significantly in scope as it progresses, moving from a single kingdom to a continental conflict with divine implications.

The pacing favors long, immersive chapters that alternate between romantic tension and action. For HOEAB fans who want a slow-burn romance with a heroine breaking free of containment, From Blood and Ash hits those notes hard.

Six of Crows drops a crew of six outcasts into a heist that requires them to break into the most secure prison in the world. Leigh Bardugo constructs the team dynamic the way Maas builds Bryce's friend group in Lunathion: each person brings a specific skill and a specific wound, and the chemistry between them drives the story as much as the plot does. Kaz Brekker is the crew's leader, a criminal prodigy whose ruthlessness masks deep emotional damage, and his relationship with Inej, a spy and acrobat, burns slowly through trust rather than through physical contact.

The Grishaverse setting provides a fully realized world with its own politics, magic system, and cultural distinctions between nations. Bardugo writes action sequences with clarity, making the heist mechanics feel plausible within the fantasy framework. The dual romance tracks give different types of readers something to invest in, with Nina and Matthias providing an enemies-to-lovers arc that contrasts with Kaz and Inej's more fragile dynamic.

The found-family bond between all six characters creates the same warmth that Bryce's crew of friends provides in HOEAB, where loyalty is tested by circumstances but never truly broken. For readers who loved the friend dynamics and the mission-driven plot of HOEAB, Six of Crows is a perfect follow-up.

When the Moon Hatched builds its world on the ruins of a dragon civilization, with fallen dragons frozen into moons that orbit the planet. Raeve works as an assassin in a stratified society shaped by the loss of these creatures, and her mission brings her face to face with Kaan, a king whose kingdom operates under different rules than her own. Sarah A. Parker writes with visual intensity, creating environments that feel cinematic in their scale and detail.

The romance between Raeve and Kaan develops through forced proximity and mutual recognition of each other's competence, building from hostility to reluctant respect to something deeper. Parker structures the book with dual timelines that slowly reveal Raeve's connection to the fallen dragons and to Kaan himself, using the past-timeline revelations to recontextualize the present-day conflict. The magic system ties to the dragons and their demise, with different characters wielding abilities drawn from draconic power in ways that create natural conflict. The prose balances atmospheric description with action, keeping the pacing steady without sacrificing worldbuilding.

Parker writes grief as a structural element, with the loss of the dragons shaping every aspect of the society Raeve moves through. For HOEAB readers who want a world built on loss and a romance between two competent, dangerous people, When the Moon Hatched delivers.

Kingdom of the Wicked opens with a murder that mirrors HOEAB's inciting incident: Emilia's twin sister is killed, and the investigation pulls Emilia into a supernatural world she barely knew existed. Maniscalco writes the mystery with genuine clues and red herrings, keeping the whodunit element active alongside the growing romance between Emilia and Wrath. The Sicily-inspired setting gives the story a sensory texture that matches Lunathion's urban fantasy flavor, with Maniscalco describing food, architecture, and climate in ways that ground the supernatural elements in physical reality.

Emilia starts as a witch content to live quietly and ends up bargaining with the prince of hell, a trajectory that parallels Bryce's movement from grief-stricken party girl to someone willing to challenge the most powerful beings in her world. The seven demon princes create a political landscape with built-in conflict, as each prince controls a different sin and territory. Maniscalco's pacing balances the mystery and the romance, with neither element overwhelming the other.

The series grows darker and more mythologically complex with each book, rewarding readers who commit to the full arc. For HOEAB fans who want a murder mystery that opens onto dark supernatural politics with a steamy enemies-to-lovers romance, Kingdom of the Wicked is a strong match.

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in a world where magic is drawn from light and color. Brent Weeks builds a magic system of unusual specificity: different colors of light grant different abilities, and using too much of any color drives the drafter toward madness. This level of systematic worldbuilding matches the detail Maas puts into Crescent City's supernatural hierarchy, with Weeks creating a world where magical ability shapes politics, religion, and warfare.

The cast is large and morally complex, with Gavin carrying secrets that threaten to unravel his entire kingdom, and the supporting characters operating with their own agendas that intersect and conflict in unexpected ways. Weeks writes action sequences with tactical precision, staging battles that depend on the specific mechanics of his magic system rather than on generic displays of power. The political intrigue runs deep, with religious institutions and military orders competing for control in ways that feel historically grounded.

The series spans five books, giving readers who want a long investment plenty to dig into. The tone is darker and less romance-focused than HOEAB, but it matches Crescent City's interest in how power structures control populations and how individuals disrupt those systems. For HOEAB fans who want the worldbuilding depth and political complexity without the romance focus, The Black Prism offers that in spades.