If Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone left you hungry for more morally gray characters, intricate heists, and worlds that feel lived-in and dangerous, these 13 authors like Leigh Bardugo will fill the gap.
Leigh Bardugo built the Grishaverse from the ground up, starting with Shadow and Bone (2012) and expanding it into one of the most fully realized fantasy worlds in modern fiction. The Shadow and Bone trilogy follows Alina Starkov, an orphaned mapmaker who discovers she has the power to summon light. But it was Six of Crows (2015) and its sequel Crooked Kingdom that cemented Bardugo’s reputation — a heist novel with six misfit criminals trying to pull off an impossible job, each carrying enough backstory for a novel of their own.
Bardugo then took a hard turn with Ninth House (2019), an adult dark academia novel set at Yale that deals with secret societies, ghosts, and ritual magic. It proved she could write far beyond the boundaries of YA fantasy. What makes her stand out across all these books is the quality of her character work — every member of the Crows has a distinct voice, distinct motivations, and distinct flaws. She writes groups of people, not just protagonists.
For more recommendations, explore our guides to best fantasy authors, authors like Brandon Sanderson, and authors like Sarah J. Maas.
Authors Like Leigh Bardugo
1. Holly Black
Holly Black and Leigh Bardugo are close friends, writing collaborators, and creative kindred spirits. Black’s The Cruel Prince follows a mortal girl navigating the treacherous politics of a faerie court with nothing but her wits and ruthlessness. The Folk of the Air trilogy is essential reading for anyone who loves Bardugo’s blend of political intrigue and dangerous magic.
Both writers create protagonists who survive by being smarter and more ruthless than the people around them. Jude Duarte and Kaz Brekker could swap books and neither would feel out of place. Black’s adult novel Book of Night also parallels Bardugo’s move to adult fiction with Ninth House — both proving that great YA writers can transition seamlessly.
“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
Holly Black, The Cruel Prince
2. Sabaa Tahir
Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes is set in a brutal military empire inspired by ancient Rome, following a slave girl who becomes a spy inside the empire’s most elite military academy. The quartet is relentlessly tense, politically complex, and doesn’t pull punches — characters you care about suffer and die.
Tahir shares Bardugo’s talent for building oppressive systems that feel real. The Martial Empire’s cruelty isn’t cartoonish; it’s systemic and institutional, which makes the resistance against it more meaningful. The dual POV structure gives both the oppressor and oppressed real interiority. If you loved the heist-under-pressure tension of Six of Crows, Tahir delivers similar stakes with a military setting.
“There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”
Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes
3. V.E. Schwab
V.E. Schwab’s Vicious features two former college roommates who discover how to develop superpowers — and become mortal enemies. There’s no hero and no villain, just two brilliant, ruthless men trying to destroy each other. It’s the same moral complexity that makes Bardugo’s best characters so compelling.
Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy is her most Bardugo-adjacent work — parallel Londons connected by rare magic users, political intrigue between rival empires, and characters forced to choose between survival and principle. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue showed her range, but Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic are the essential reads for Bardugo fans.
“Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
V.E. Schwab, Vicious
4. Kerri Maniscalco
Kerri Maniscalco started with the Stalking Jack the Ripper series (historical mystery with a forensic science angle) before pivoting to fantasy with Kingdom of the Wicked. Set in an Italian-inspired world of witches and demon princes, the trilogy combines enemies-to-lovers romance with political scheming and revenge.
Maniscalco shares Bardugo’s gift for atmosphere. Sicily in Kingdom of the Wicked is as vividly realized as Ketterdam in Six of Crows, and both settings function as more than backdrop — the cities shape the characters who live in them. The escalating stakes across the trilogy mirror Bardugo’s approach in the Grishaverse, where each book raises the danger. If these stories inspire you to try writing your own fantasy, Grammarly can help you polish your prose during the editing process.
“Some things are worth the risk of being burned.”
Kerri Maniscalco, Kingdom of the Wicked
5. R.F. Kuang
R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War starts as a military academy story and becomes a devastating war novel inspired by China’s history. Rin is a war orphan who tests into the most elite military academy in the empire, discovers she can channel the power of an ancient god, and must decide how much destruction she’s willing to cause.
Kuang and Bardugo share a willingness to put their characters through genuine horror. Neither writer uses violence casually — the consequences of power are always front and centre. Kuang’s Babel (a dark academia novel about translation and colonialism at Oxford) also parallels Bardugo’s Ninth House in its critique of elite institutions built on exploitation.
“War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who remains.”
R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War
6. Susan Dennard
Susan Dennard and Leigh Bardugo are close friends (they co-created the publishing blog “Pub(lishing) Crawl”), and Dennard’s Truthwitch shares the Grishaverse’s emphasis on political complexity and found family. The Witchlands series features multiple magic systems, warring empires, and a central friendship between two young women that drives the entire plot.
Dennard’s world-building is ambitious — four continents, dozens of magical abilities, and a political situation that shifts with every book. Like Bardugo, she writes ensemble stories where relationships between characters matter as much as the external conflict. The Witchlands series rewards re-reading because the political machinations become clearer with each pass.
“We are the Threadsisters, and we will not be broken.”
Susan Dennard, Truthwitch
7. Jay Kristoff
Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight follows Mia Corvere, a girl training at a school for assassins in a world with three suns that never fully set. The prose is stylistically bold (footnotes, second-person asides, ornate language), and the violence is graphic. It’s unapologetically dark fantasy with a female protagonist who kills without hesitation.
Kristoff’s Nevernight Chronicle shares Six of Crows’ fascination with criminals, thieves, and killers who live by their own moral codes. His co-authored Illuminae trilogy (with Amie Kaufman) is a sci-fi series told through documents, chat logs, and surveillance footage. Both series show his love of unconventional storytelling, which Bardugo fans will appreciate.
“Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever forget.”
Jay Kristoff, Nevernight
8. Marissa Meyer
Marissa Meyer’s Cinder reimagines Cinderella as a cyborg mechanic in a futuristic Beijing, and the Lunar Chronicles expand to include sci-fi retellings of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White. Each book adds new characters, and by the final installment, the ensemble cast is working together against a tyrannical lunar queen.
Meyer’s strength, like Bardugo’s, is her ensemble writing. Each member of the Lunar Chronicles cast has a distinct personality, distinct skills, and distinct emotional arc. The series builds momentum through character interactions, not just plot — exactly the quality that makes the Crows so beloved. Meyer’s tone is lighter than Bardugo’s, but the storytelling fundamentals are the same.
“Even in the future, the story begins with once upon a time.”
Marissa Meyer, Cinder
9. Marie Lu
Marie Lu’s Legend is a dystopian thriller about two teenagers on opposite sides of a future war in what was once Los Angeles. Lu writes action with cinematic precision, and her dual-POV structure creates the kind of dramatic irony that keeps you turning pages. The Young Elites trilogy is darker and more morally complex — a villain origin story told from the villain’s perspective.
Lu shares Bardugo’s ability to write politically sophisticated worlds that feel relevant. The class divisions, propaganda, and military structures in Legend echo real-world systems, and The Young Elites explores how trauma creates monsters. Her Skyhunter duology and Stars and Smoke show her range, but The Young Elites is the most Bardugo-adjacent.
“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again.”
Marie Lu, Legend
10. Kendare Blake
Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns is about three sister queens who must fight to the death for the throne, each wielding a different type of magic. The political maneuvering, betrayals, and shifting alliances will be immediately familiar to anyone who loved the palace intrigue of the Grishaverse.
Blake writes with a grimness that matches Bardugo’s darker moments. The premise of Three Dark Crowns is brutal — sisters raised apart, manipulated by political factions, and forced to kill each other. The series gets more complex with each installment, and Blake isn’t afraid to kill major characters. She also writes horror-tinged YA, including Anna Dressed in Blood.
“The queens are born, and the queens will die. That is the way of things.”
Kendare Blake, Three Dark Crowns
11. Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree is a massive standalone epic fantasy with dragons, queens, and a world-spanning conflict. Shannon published her debut, The Bone Season, at age 21, and has since built two distinct fantasy series with the kind of meticulous world-building that Bardugo excels at.
Shannon’s Bone Season series is set in an alternate future London where clairvoyants are persecuted, and the criminal underworld of Scion London shares DNA with Bardugo’s Ketterdam. Both writers create cities that feel alive and dangerous, populated by characters navigating power structures designed to crush them.
“No darkness is impenetrable. There is always a star.”
Samantha Shannon, The Priory of the Orange Tree
12. Shelby Mahurin
Shelby Mahurin’s Serpent & Dove is set in a world where witches are hunted and burned by the church, and a witch ends up married to a witch hunter through an arranged union. The enemies-to-lovers dynamic is sharp and funny, and the world-building — French-inspired, with a religious persecution angle — gives the story real weight.
Mahurin writes with a lightness of touch that masks serious themes, similar to how Bardugo uses Jesper’s humor to balance the darkness in Six of Crows. The banter between Lou and Reid is top-tier, and the series gets progressively darker as the political and magical stakes escalate.
“You can’t protect someone from the world. The world will get them anyway.”
Shelby Mahurin, Serpent & Dove
13. Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education is a dark academia fantasy about a school for wizards where the school itself is designed to kill students. El Higgins has an affinity for mass destruction magic but refuses to use it, navigating alliances and survival with the same strategic thinking that Kaz Brekker would appreciate.
Novik’s Scholomance trilogy balances humor, horror, and heart in a way that mirrors Bardugo’s best work. Her earlier novels — Uprooted and Spinning Silver — are standalone fairy tale retellings that show a different side of her talent. All of Novik’s work shares Bardugo’s fundamental belief that the best fantasy stories are about characters making impossible choices.
“I didn’t want to be the monster. But I wasn’t going to be the victim, either.”
Naomi Novik, A Deadly Education