What to read after “We Hunt the Flame” by Hafsah Faizal: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Amani Al'Hiza lives in Dustwalk, a dead-end desert town, and hides two things: she can shoot like a legend, and she is half djinn. Refusing a blackmail marriage and a future in Dustwalk, she disguises herself and joins a stranger heading into the desert, where a rebellion is gathering.
Each dawn the young caliph marries a bride, and each dawn she is dead. When Shahrzad volunteers to marry him, she survives the first night by telling stories and begins to look for the truth behind his cruelty.
Eelyn is a warrior of the Aska clan, raised to fight the rival Riki in a war older than anyone remembers. Captured and forced to live among her enemies, she begins to see them as people, and finds herself drawn to a young man she was always taught to kill.
Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is the last real ghul hunter in the desert city of Dhamsawaat, and he wants only to retire. When a series of murders points to a powerful supernatural enemy, he takes up his sword again with his young apprentice and a fierce tribeswoman, and the three pursue the danger beyond the city walls.
Loulie al-Nazari, the Midnight Merchant, trades in jinn relics with her jinn bodyguard Qadir. When the sultan forces her into a search for a lost lamp, she must cross a desert of jinn, thieves and old stories, where the line between merchant and prey keeps shifting.
In a city that has conquered and enslaved a neighbouring people, the general's daughter Kestrel buys a defiant young slave named Arin on a whim. He is far more than he seems, and as rebellion stirs in the streets, Kestrel finds her loyalty to her family pulling against everything she feels for him.
John Carter, a former Confederate soldier, wakes on Mars and finds a dying world of red deserts, warring tribes and thin air. Taken in by the green Martians, he learns their customs and their languages, and sets out to protect Dejah Thoris, a princess of the red Martians.
Daphne Pembroke needs help to free her kidnapped brother, so she hires Rupert Carsington, a strong, reckless nobleman with more charm than sense. Their search for him and a stolen papyrus takes them up the Nile, where tomb robbers, the desert and their growing feelings prove equally dangerous.
Évike is the only woman in her pagan village with no magic, and her people treat her as an outcast. When the kingdom's holy warriors demand a sacrifice, she is handed to their one-eyed captain, a monster-hunter her village hates. To survive the winter forest, the two must rely on each other despite everything between them.
Jude was born mortal but was raised in the High Court of Faerie after her parents were killed. Mocked by the fae and drawn to the cruel prince Cardan, she schemes her way into the court's politics, trading secrets and taking dangerous risks to win a place among those who despise her.
Lira is a siren who takes the heart of a prince each year. When she is punished and turned human, the only way back is to deliver the heart of Prince Elian, a siren hunter who has no idea who she really is. Their journey across the sea turns enemies into something neither of them planned.
Angels have destroyed the modern world, and seventeen-year-old Penryn is trying to keep her mother and sister alive. When soldiers take her sister, Penryn captures a wounded angel and offers to help him in exchange for a rescue, an alliance that grows into something neither expected.
Alessandra will do anything to gain power, including marry the young king and then kill him. The Shadow King, feared and rumoured to have killed his own family, is the perfect target. But court intrigue and unexpected feelings complicate her cold plan, and someone is hunting them both.
Shasta has grown up poor in Calormen and dreams of escape. When he meets a talking horse who longs for Narnia, the two flee north together, joined by a runaway noble girl and her horse. Their road lies across a burning desert, with pursuers close behind and a secret about Shasta's past waiting at the end.
With the gods at war, two young journalists compete for the same columnist post at a dying newspaper. Iris hides her family's troubles, and Roman, her rival, seems to have everything. When anonymous letters begin to pass between them, neither suspects who is writing on the other side.
Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, follows the man in black across a vast, dying desert. His pursuit leads him through ruined towns and old memories, and forces him to weigh his obsession with the Dark Tower against the life of a boy he meets on the road.
On her sixteenth birthday Meghan learns that her little brother has been swapped for a changeling and that the fey are real. To get him back she enters the Nevernever, a dangerous world divided between Summer and Winter courts, where she is drawn to a prince she was raised to fear.
Jude now controls the throne from behind the scenes, holding Prince Cardan bound to her for a year and a day. Court politics, undersea enemies and her own divided heart threaten the plan. She must keep her grip on power while denying the feelings growing between her and the wicked king she came to despise.
Mina takes her brother's place as the sacrifice meant to calm the Sea God, and wakes in the realm of spirits. There she searches for the god, hoping to save her village and the boy who has waited for her.
A street criminal offers six dangerous outcasts a fortune to break into an impregnable fortress and rescue a captive inventor. The heist needs a plan no one has tried before, and none of the crew trusts the others.
Poppy was born the Maiden, chosen and set apart, forbidden from friends, love or any life of her own. When a new guard, Hawke, enters her world, duty and desire collide for the first time. As attacks close in on the kingdom, she begins to doubt everything she was taught about the gods and her own fate.
Harry Crewe, newly orphaned, travels to a remote outpost on the Darian border to live with her brother. Corlath, king of the Free Hillfolk, carries her away from the fort, and she finds an old magic waking in her blood. Caught between two peoples, she must decide where she belongs.
Rune is the last of her kind, hiding her magic while playing the flirtatious socialite. By day she courts the witch hunters; by night she works against them. Then she sets her sights on Gideon, a loyal hunter with a secret of his own, and the lies between them grow harder to keep.
Catalia works as a soothsayer in a travelling circus, hiding the power that once made her a pawn of the gods. Griffin, a warlord desperate to save his people, recognises her magic and carries her off to his kingdom. On the long road there, loathing turns into a bond neither of them wanted and neither can deny.
Start with “Rebel of the Sands”, “The Wrath and the Dawn”, “Sky in the Deep”: they are the closest to “We Hunt the Flame” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “We Hunt the Flame” these are Desert World, Quest, Enemies to Lovers), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “Rebel of the Sands”, “The Wrath and the Dawn”, “Sky in the Deep”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
