Court intrigue and politics
Because who doesn't love a little drama within the royal courts? Secret plots, political moves, and pursuits of power all within imperial or noble courts. Feedback and recs welcome!
created by cetra
last updated December, 2025
Comments
Ooh, I'm excited for this! I LOVE court intrique, but it quite hard to find! You could add the King of Scars/Rule of Wolves duology possibly.
ooh just out of curiosity, did those books have a heavy focus on political intrigue in general? i'm not familiar with the grishaverse at all so i thought id ask haha
All of the series in the Grishaverse have war, politics and religion but these books have the most! So Shadow and Bone focus on mostly prophecy, war etc. But its all from the perspective of one girl who is a soldier, not a high up person so it doesn't feel as political. Six of Crows (my favourite) focus on gangland, but its a culturally diverse place so theres lots of mentions of war and religion and there is a lot of politics in the grift they pull in the second book. But King of Scars and Rule of Wolves have the highest stakes - politics wise. POVs from rival royals, political advisors, a spy, weapon engineers etc. There are royal wedding plots espionage, stolen identities, a cult leader, battles, affairs and a cursed kingdom. So they are definetly the most focused on this genre of all the Grishaverse books, but I feel anyone who likes, say Game of Thrones, would enjoy these books but just beware the others are a lot lighter on stakes.
Gotcha, gotcha! That makes sense! I assume they should be read in a certain order after shadow and bone/six of crows?
You can really read Grishaverse in any order. Chronologically it goes: Demon in the Woods Shadow & Bone trilogy Six of Crows duoligy King of Scars duology However - when I bought Six of Crows I didn't know it was part of a series, so I read all the books that featured the Crows before the "main" trilogy, so this order: Six of Crows duo King of Scars duo Shadow & Bone three DITW I honestly think anyone could read King of Scars and then Rule of Wolves independently from all the rest.
Noted, thanks so much!
Clears throat 🗣️ THE CITY OF BRASS (the whole Daevabad trilogy) belongs here as well!
This is a cool list! I will be checking out these books 🤩
cetraOP
added! 🫶
Cetra is back with another banger list! Have you read the throne of the five winds and/or night of the raven, dawn of the dove? (No worries if you haven’t, I’m just trying to see if I’ll read them myself as the blurbs are really interesting 👀)
Throne of the Five Winds is amazing and criminally underhyped ! It created an itch I've been trying to scratch ever since
I’m sold honestly, it sounds amazing
cetraOP
ahh thank you 🫡 and i have not! those were fairly recent additions that also piqued my interest. honestly Throne of the Five Winds sounds amazing and i can’t believe i never heard of it before?! Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove seemed to have mixed reviews when i looked into it but i’m aways open to fantasy that isn’t Western-centric.
Noted noted!!! I’ll have to check them out myself too!
