Books like “The Name of the Wind”

What to read after “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Shadow of What Was Lost
James Islington · 2014
Same genre: “Epic fantasy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Davian is an Augur, born with powers forbidden since the old war. When the laws of the Venerate turn against him, he flees with his friends in search of the man who might explain why the Augurs fell. What he finds tests everything he was taught to believe.
2
Red Sister
Mark Lawrence · 2017
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Sold and condemned, the girl Nona Grey is saved from the gallows by the Convent of Sweet Mercy, where young women are trained as warriors and killers. Between lessons in blade and poison she makes friends and enemies and a promise, while the past that marked her comes looking.
3
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin · 1968
Same genre: “Bildungsroman”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Ged, a gifted goatherd, is sent to the school for wizards on Roke to learn magic. A spell of vanity releases a shadow he cannot name, and he must travel across Earthsea to face it and become whole.
4
The Magicians
Lev Grossman · 2009
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Quentin Coldwater is recruited to a hidden college of magic in upstate New York, where years of study leave him restless and still searching for meaning. When he and his friends find a way into Fillory, the enchanted land from his childhood books, its dangers turn out to be very real.
5
Iron Flame
Rebecca Yarros · 2023
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
Violet has survived her first year at Basgiath War College, but the answers she sought only revealed a larger lie. As war closes in, she must decide whom to trust, including a man she loves and cannot fully believe, while the school hides truths even its riders are forbidden to know.
6
The School for Good and Evil
Soman Chainani · 2013
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Every year two children are taken to the School for Good and Evil, one to train as a hero and one as a villain. Best friends Sophie and Agatha are sure they know which is which, but the school has its own plans for them.
7
The Poppy War
R. F. Kuang · 2018
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Rin, a war orphan from the impoverished south, tests into Sinegard, the empire's elite military academy, and discovers a shamanic power tied to the gods. When war with the Federation erupts she is forced to use it, and the cost turns out to be monstrous.
8
The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson · 2010
Same genre: “Epic fantasy” and “Adventure”
- Forbidden Knowledge
On a storm-scoured world, a slave carries ancient honours, a scholar chases forbidden knowledge and a soldier guards a war that never ends. Their paths bend toward a returning danger few believe is real.
9
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
Jessica Townsend · 2017
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Morrigan Crow is blamed for every misfortune and is marked to die on her eleventh birthday. Instead she is spirited away to the secret city of Nevermoor to compete for a place in an exclusive society, against rivals and a curse that still hunts her.
10
Foundryside
Robert Jackson Bennett · 2018
Similar plot moves: “Forbidden Knowledge”
- Forbidden Knowledge
Sancia Grado is a thief in Tevanne, a city where scribing commands objects to obey written orders. Hired to steal a key, she finds it holds power that could break the four merchant houses' grip on magic, and the houses will kill to keep that power buried.
11
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik · 2020
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, where students learn spells while monsters pick them off between lessons. Galadriel 'El' Higgins, feared for the dark power a prophecy says she will wield, has to survive to graduation and the hungry things waiting in the dark.
12
Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yarros · 2023
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
Violet Sorrengail expected a quiet life among books, not the deadly rider quadrant where cadets die and dragons choose their own riders. Thin and untrained, she survives on wit alone. Her greatest threat is Xaden Riorson, a ruthless wing leader whose attention she never wanted.