Oraya is a human in a vampire kingdom. No powers, no venom, no supernatural speed. Just training, strategy, and the kind of stubbornness that borders on a death wish. She enters the Kejari, a tournament designed to kill her, and allies with Raihn, a competitor who could snap her neck before she registered the movement. The entire first book takes place inside that tournament, and by the end of it you will be physically incapable of not starting book two.
So what do you read after that? The specific combination that makes Serpent work is rare: a tournament structure where the romance develops under threat of death, a heroine who earns survival through intelligence instead of power, and an enemies-to-lovers dynamic built on "I need you alive but I don't trust you." We went looking for books that hit at least two of those threads hard.
Some of these lean heavier on the tournament arc. Some focus on the trust-and-betrayal dynamic. A couple go darker than Serpent does. We flagged spice levels and series length so you know what you're getting into.
2,100+ romantasy and fantasy romance books tagged by trope. Filter by spice, genre, and series length. Stack tropes to find exactly what you're craving.
Start HuntingFourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Violet Sorrengail walks into a dragon rider academy where the entrance exam has a body count, and she has a bone condition that means any physical challenge could kill her. The Gauntlet sequence at the beginning has the same "survive the round, surprise everyone" energy as the Kejari. Xaden is hiding things from the jump, and the trust issues between them escalate across books in a way that'll feel familiar if you spent all of Serpent screaming at Oraya to stop trusting Raihn. (Or to trust him more. Depending on the chapter.) Spicier than Serpent and the world opens up fast after book one.
Powerless by Lauren Roberts
This is the closest mirror to Serpent in the entire list. Paedyn is an Ordinary in a kingdom where everyone has an Ability, and she's been faking hers to survive. Then she's thrown into the Purging Trials, a televised tournament against Elites who can crush her without trying. Kai is a prince, a competitor, and the last person she should be falling for. The parallels to Oraya are almost uncanny: powerless girl in a world built to kill her, hiding what she is, forming a dangerous alliance with someone on the other side. The slow burn between Paedyn and Kai builds through the trials themselves, and every challenge forces them closer while raising the cost of trust.
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
If you want the Kejari's death-game energy but sharper and meaner, Nevernight is the answer. Mia Corvere enrolls in a school for assassins where the curriculum includes murdering your classmates. The tournament structure is less formal than Serpent's, more a slow elimination where anyone could kill you in your sleep. Mia is ruthless in a way Oraya isn't. She has her own agenda and people are going to die for it. The prose is dense (Kristoff does footnotes, and they're either brilliant or infuriating depending on your tolerance), and the twists at the end hurt. Romance is present but secondary. You're here for the blood and the betrayals.
The Jasad Heir by Sara Hashem
Sylvia has been hiding for ten years. She's Jasadi, part of a kingdom that was destroyed, and if anyone finds out what she is, she's dead. Then Arin, the Heir of Nizahl, the kingdom responsible for Jasad's destruction, discovers her secret and forces her into a tournament as his champion. The power dynamics here are vicious. He holds her life in his hands and they both know it. The enemies-to-lovers burns slow because the reasons they shouldn't trust each other are political, historical, and deeply personal. Sylvia's suppressed magic fighting to surface during the trials adds a layer of tension Serpent readers will recognize: every round could expose her.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Blackcliff Military Academy makes the Kejari look humane. Laia infiltrates it as a spy for the resistance while Elias, the academy's best soldier, is trying to desert. Two POVs, both trapped inside a brutal institution, both with impossible loyalties pulling them apart. The romance is warm, not steamy, but the slow burn is the agonizing kind where you know they can't be together and you keep reading anyway. Characters die in this series and they stay dead. If you read Serpent for the stakes, the sense that survival costs something permanent, this delivers that across four books.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Necromancers and their swordsmen, locked in a decaying space mansion, solving puzzles that keep killing the other contestants. The tournament here is a locked-room mystery where everyone is a suspect and a potential corpse. Gideon and Harrow hate each other. They're from the same House and they cannot stand to be in the same room, which is a problem because the trials require them to work as a pair. The humor is dark and constant (Gideon's internal narration is unhinged in the best way), and the tension between them is built entirely on resentment, dependency, and a slow, grudging respect that hits harder than most on-page kisses. Zero spice. Does not matter. The ending will wreck you.
Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco
Less tournament, more long-game trust erosion. Emilia is a witch investigating her twin sister's murder. Wrath is a Prince of Hell who offers to help, and everything about him screams "do not make a deal with this man." The Oraya/Raihn dynamic lives here in the circling. Three books of "I know you're hiding something catastrophic and I'm falling for you anyway." Wrath is patient and devastating in the way Raihn is, where every small reveal reshapes what you thought was happening. If the conspiracy behind the Kejari was your favorite thread in Serpent, Kingdom of the Wicked does a similar thing across a longer arc, pulling the rug out in ways that retroactively change everything.
City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford
Rowan ends up trapped in a demon city and forced into the Demon Queen Trials, competing against demons for a throne she doesn't want while the High Lord of Demons is absolutely using her for his own agenda. The pacing is fast, the trials are deadly, and Orion is the kind of MMC who will let you walk into danger because it serves his plan and then burn down the arena if anyone touches you. Faster and spicier than Serpent, with the same "survive the round, fall for the enemy" structure. If you want the tournament arc without the emotional devastation, this one delivers the thrill without breaking your heart. (Much.)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Two magicians, bound as children to a competition neither chose, building increasingly elaborate magical creations inside a mysterious circus. They don't know the rules. They don't know the stakes. They fall in love before they realize the game can only end when one of them dies. The tone is nothing like Serpent. It's quiet, atmospheric, almost dreamlike. But the emotional core is identical: two people on opposite sides of a contest designed to destroy one of them, falling for each other while the clock runs out. If you want to feel what Oraya and Raihn's situation felt like without the blood and the vampires, this is it. Lower spice, higher heartache.
Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
Annie and Lee grew up together in a post-revolution society, both orphaned by the old regime, both competing to become the First Rider of their dragonriding class. Except Lee is secretly the last surviving heir of the family the revolution overthrew. The enemies-to-lovers here is built on political loyalty and class, not on antagonism. They care about each other. That's what makes it hurt. When the old regime starts pushing to return, Lee has to choose between the girl he loves and the bloodline he's been hiding, and Annie has to decide how far she'll go to protect a new world that's already compromising its ideals. Low spice, but the political and emotional tension is relentless. If you loved the Kejari for the "bigger forces manipulating the competition" layer, Fireborne does that through revolution and governance instead of gods and vampires.
Tell us what you love and what you avoid. Every book gets scored: how much of what you love is in it, and whether anything you avoid is hiding inside.
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