Uncover the 20 Must-Read Dark Fantasy Romance Books for 2026
“True love dies most beautifully in the mouths of poets and liars.”
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Dark fantasy romance books are a unique subgenre that fuses dark fantasy elements—think gothic vibes, supernatural creatures, and morally intricate realms—with romantic plots that showcase intense, passionate, and occasionally taboo love. These tales frequently delve into themes of good versus evil, personal darkness, and intricate relationships, all set against backdrops brimming with magic, monsters, or dystopian features.
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⭐ BOOK CLUB TOP PICK ⭐
Tortured Souls by Melissa K. Roehrich
The King
The safety of his kingdom has been the highest priority for Cethin since the moment he was born, but he’s been on the throne less than a year when new threats find their way to his lands. Past sacrifices mean nothing if he can’t figure out what is hunting his people. Desperate to protect his kingdom but also free Avonleya from the curse that keeps them locked away from the rest of realm, he’ll do anything to ensure his people know peace. Even if that means being a villain in one story to be a savior in another.
The Queen
When Kailia steps in to save the Avonleyan king from certain death, she never expected to be punished for it. Then again, maybe she’s being punished for accidentally stabbing him a few weeks later. Whatever the reason, she suddenly finds herself forced into a marriage and onto a throne. But she’s not from here. She’s from across the sea where the Avonleyan king is only whispered about. Wicked. Cursed. Cruel. That’s fine. She can be all those things too, and she’ll have to be to get what she came to the kingdom for. She lives for the hunt, and she’s never the prey.
The Dragon
Avonleya is the only real home he’s ever known, but Razik Greybane is loyal to the kingdom that loves the night, not the arrogant king who sits on the throne. Content with his books and solitude, he only cares for two people: his uncle and the female Fae who can sustain his magic. When his uncle assigns him to be the new queen’s personal guard, Razik agrees. Sure, it’s mainly to figure out the new queen’s ulterior motives, but if he can use the opportunity to undermine Cethin, he’ll take that too. It’s only fair when he’s the reason Razik was abandoned to this realm and cursed to forever fight a destiny he doesn’t want, until he realizes the Fates just might be more involved than they ever realized.
Wicked Onyx by Debbie Cassidy
Born into a sorcerer bloodline, cursed, and cut off from my power, I was accustomed to being an outcast. For generations, my bloodline carried the weight of a crime committed by our ancestor. But my mother’s death changed everything. She left a clue that could prove our innocence: an ancient text hidden deep beneath Nightsbridge Academy.
The Academy is a fortress of power, housing the most dangerous incantors and sorcerers, conscripted to keep Horrors and Echoes at bay. And as the last surviving Onyx, I’m owed admission.
My plan is simple—find the book and expose the Imperium as the liars they are.
But I didn’t plan for the whispers that haunt my dreams. Or the complication of feelings I shouldn’t be capable of—stirred by two men bound to the very institution I’ve come to destroy. One sees too much yet says too little. The other is steady, protective, and always in my corner.
I can’t have either. Yet when I’m in their presence…my curse begins to crack. f they discover my true purpose, I’m dead. But some truths are worth dying for.
The Imperium cursed my bloodline. Stripped us of our magic. Branded us as traitors. And now they will pay.
The Wolf and the Crown of Blood by Elizabeth May
A princess and a war-weary god met in the ashes of a broken city, forging a pact in blood and sacrifice.
Now, centuries of fragile peace are on the brink of collapse…
Bryony Devaliant was born to die-again and again. In Vartena, royal blood is the currency of peace, with every monarch sacrificed and resurrected to appease the gods.
But when rebellion stirs, the god-king sends his deadliest weapon to restore order: an immortal assassin known only as the Wolf.
Evander has perfected the art of killing over centuries-until his latest target becomes the one person he cannot destroy. When forbidden desire burns between the assassin and the sacrificial princess, their connection threatens the fragile boundary between gods and mortals.
And when that boundary shatters, empires crumble. Because when gods fall in love with mortals, mortals are always the ones to break.
A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez
Rune Ryker has nothing left to lose. Everything’s been stolen by the Immortals—her family, her home, her freedom. But she’s done playing by their rules.
Each year, humans are forced to journey into the Immortal Realms, but twenty-year-old Rune orchestrates her own selection, determined to find her family and destroy anyone who stands in her way.
Rune is used to doing whatever it takes to survive, and now she must endure the Forge, a cutthroat college for the Immortal druids’ elusive tarot magic.
When Rune’s magic reveals itself to be the rarest and most powerful, she must live with its only other wielder—Prince Draven. As arrogant as he is ruthlessly ambitious, he’s the last person she can trust.
Rune’s abilities also draw the eyes of the most dangerous druids in the realms. Some want to use her. More want her dead. Draven offers to train her . . . for a price. As Rune becomes ensnared in Draven’s dangerous games, she learns there are secrets at the heart of the kingdom that some will kill to protect.
And Rune and Draven’s growing attraction may be the spark to ignite a brewing war.
The Ascended by Bree Grenwich & Parker Lennox
In a world where divine power bleeds into the mortal realm, Thais Morvaren has mastered the art of deception. To her seaside village, she's just a fisherman's daughter, serving oysters to summer tourists. In secret, she hides her ability to forge weapons from starlight—a power that would force her into the deadly Trials of Ascension.
But when a priest's ritual exposes her divine heritage, Thais is seized and conscripted into the trials against her will. Now trapped in a competition she never wanted to enter, she transforms her fear into purpose: to kill Olinthar, King of the Gods—the father whose divine touch proved fatal to her mother.
To take down a god, she must become one, even if it costs her everything.
Worse still, the selection ceremony binds her to a mentor: Xül. A necromancer prince with blood-soaked hands, a sharp tongue, and dark secrets of his own. From the moment they meet, sparks fly. He's insufferably arrogant, she's stubborn to the bone, and neither has any intention of yielding to the other... or to the heat between them.
Each trial survived brings her closer to godhood, but beneath the spectacle of competition, something ancient and malevolent stalks the shadows of the divine realm—a darkness that threatens to unravel the heavens themselves.
Thais may have been forced into the Trials seeking survival, but she'll finish them seeking vengeance. And the cost of godhood is rising. Because some stars aren't meant to be weapons. Some stars are meant to fall.
The Poison Daughter by Sheila Masterson
Every person Harlow Carrenwell kisses dies immediately, and that’s the way she likes it. The poison-lipped youngest daughter of Lunameade’s magical founding family has used her power to annihilate their opposition.
Her first husband is in the ground. Her new betrothed is next.
But the merry widow has a secret. When she’s not acting as an assassin at her parents' whims, she moonlights as a vigilante for abused women in their walled-off city.
Meet a man. Lure him in. Kill him with a kiss. Until one night Harlow kisses a mark and he doesn’t die.
Worse, her invincible partner in passion is her new betrothed, Henry Havenwood, and now he knows about her double life. Instead of selling her out and bringing the rival families to blows, he does something much more sinister—whisks her away to wed in his wild mountain fort.
Harlow doesn’t trust Henry, but the only way to protect her family and the city of Lunameade is to figure out what his family is planning.
Cursed with a husband she can’t kill and trapped in a fort miles of vampire-infested woods from home, Harlow’s survival requires her to do the impossible: Make the man who knows she’s a killer fall in love with her anyway.
Heir of Illusion by Madeline Taylor
She is not the pet they tamed.
Blessed with the power of illusion, Iverson Pomeroy has many tricks up her sleeve. However, none of them are a match for the enchanted collar at her throat that keeps her bound as assassin and mistress to a ruthless king. Forced to play the role of his obedient pet, she plots in secret to destroy him and claim the freedom she has always been denied.
She is the beast they let inside.
When a mysterious reaper, Thorne, arrives in the city with his sights set on the same weapon Ivy needs—the only artifact that can remove her collar—she must decide how far she’s willing to go.
And she will show no mercy.
With a tenuous alliance tying them together, Ivy learns there is more to her reluctant companion than meets the eye... He sparks her curiosity and ignites dangerous desires within her. But will the secrets they harbor destroy each other? And does it even matter, when anyone who so much as touches Thorne dies?
The Death-Made Prince by Lisette Marshall
The man Thraga loved is dead, and her future is in shambles. When she's sentenced to the gallows for killing her lover's murderers, it's a relief more than anything… until, the night before her execution, a necromancer is thrown into her cell.
Escaping with him is her only chance to bring Lark back to life - and also the start of all her troubles.
Because her new almost-ally is not just any man returned from death. Fire mage, rogue prince, and son of the man who killed her mother, sharp-tongued Durlain Averre is everything Thraga hates.
Worse, he won't revive her lover unless she joins him on a mission of his own first, using her forbidden rune magic to free his sister from the dungeons of an enemy king.
But their quest turns into a deadly chase when Thraga's violent past catches up with her. And as the net of court intrigue and old fears closes around them, she begins to find out Lark was not at all the man she thought he was…
And neither is Durlain.
Alchemised by SenLinYu
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”
Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.
In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.
According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?
To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.
Neverthorn by Shannon Mayer
In a realm where magic reigns, a legendary Hero once stood against the encroaching darkness. But with his death, hope dwindled, and the best the world can muster is Harlow Daygon-a thief, magic school dropout, and notorious troublemaker.
At nearly thirty, Harlow can't even cast a simple rune without blundering it. So why does anyone think she can take up the mantle of Hero? Reluctantly, she's dragged back to Neverthorn Academy with seven former classmates, tasked with training to confront and defeat the Villain of their world.
But the challenges are stacked against her:
Professor Hot-As-Sin makes it clear she's a failure.
Professor Used-To-Be-A-Mean-Girl has a vendetta.
And lurking in her past is a secret so dark it could reveal she's not the Hero the world needs-but the next Villain.
With fate hanging in the balance, can Harlow embrace her destiny before the shadows claim her?
Bloody Black by Rhiannon Hargadon
Anne was a reckless, arrogant royal who had never tasted defeat. After a brutal betrayal on her wedding night, Anne vanishes from the kingdom she was meant to rule.
Years later, she’s returns from the grave—no longer a princess but a terror of the seas.
Known only as Blackbeard, she’s hunting down the men who destroyed her, one by one.
But vengeance doesn’t come without a cost. Brutal bargains collar her, and bind her to a dark promise. She captures Lieutenant Robb Maynard—a too-handsome, too-calm officer loyal to her enemy—Anne intends to trade him for leverage.
Instead, she finds herself locked in a dangerous game of secrets and seduction, where the greatest threat isn’t a blade—but the way he looks at her.
Like she’s still a woman worth loving. And although she knows better than to believe in anything but pain, Anne must decide if love is worth the risk.
Rose in Chains by Julie Soto
The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.
Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever.
Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment, or death.
Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction—and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price.
After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty.
Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost.
Help—and hope—may yet arise in the most unlikely of places …
Obsidian by K.F. Breene
You are mine now. Mine to play with. Mine to break.
He is secrets, danger and passion. He is forbidden sin. And now he holds the key to destroy all I hold dear.
The Dark Fae never told me his name. Not when he tried to seduce me, and not before he purposely botched one of my jobs and stole what was mine -- a dangerous relic with unlimited power. It has the ability to break kingdoms… and tear down the wall that separates the human world from the dangerous, wyld magic of the fae.
He knows that I will do anything to protect my family. Even follow him beyond the wall, into his lands.
Mortals aren't allowed in the Obsidian Kingdom. Those who're caught are killed…or turned into captives. Playthings of the Dark King and his royal family.
That's what the Dark Fae wants: to turn me into his toy. To play with. To break. But I'm not the kind of toy he's used to. I will play the games of lust and passion so that I can learn the rules. So that I can break them.
And then I will take back what is mine and claim my revenge. Not all mortal women are delicate flowers--some have thorns.
Hollow by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Don’t listen to the whispers of the woods. Don’t trust the man cloaked in shadow. Don’t earn the wrath of the scattered spirits. Don’t go out after dark.
The Great Hunt begins once every fifty years and only the Champions willing to face death to shatter the curse dare to enter. The Champions…and me.
I’m no warrior, no swordsmith, and certainly no Fae, but the forest is my only hope. To enter those trees is to walk willingly to my demise. But I need the boon the forest will grant the winner and I’m willing to risk it all for a chance at claiming it.
I just never expected to face him beneath those trees. The beast who strikes fear into the desperate people of all lands. The monster who commands the legion of Hollows and makes our plight a thousand times worse.
The Hollows are empty of all things but none are so heartless as him.
Prince Bane intends to be the death of me. But I have an oath to fulfil before I’ll let him have me. And I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it.
I am Ferris Creed and I’m going to unite the lost spirits who once bound the wandering trees in place, return the scattered amulets to the core of its corruption, and use the winner’s boon to change my fate. Come wretchedness or torment, through trickery and deception, I will get what I came here for. And no one will stand in my way. Not even Prince Bane.
Anathema by Keri Lake
Only the banished know what lies beyond the woods ...
There are whispers about what lurks in Witch Knell—the forest where sinners go to die. The villagers call it The Eating Woods because what’s taken is never given back. Only those who’ve lost their senses would dare to go near it. Or the banished.
Maevyth Bronwick knows better than to breach the misty labyrinth of trees, but a tragic turn of events compels her beyond the archway of bones, to a boundary no mortal has crossed before. One that cloaks a dark and fantastical world that’s as dangerous as it is alluring.
It’s there that he dwells, the cursed lord of Eidolon. The one tasked to keep her hidden from the magehood that seeks to crucify her in the name of an arcane prophesy. Zevander Rydainn, known to his prey as The Scorpion, is the coldest, most calculated assassin in all of Aethyria and he’d sooner toss his feisty ward to a pack of vicious fyredrakes than keep her safe. If only he could.
Maevyth’s blood is the key to breaking his despised curse and vanquishing the slumbering evil in Witch Knell. Unfortunately for Lord Rydainn, fate has other plans for the irresistible little enchantress. And his growing obsession with her threatens to destroy everything. Including himself.
The Lies of Lena by Kylie Snow
Lena Daelyra has survived by following two rules: never let anyone find out what she is and never wield her powers. After all, Mages are hunted for sport and have no laws to protect them. Staying alive means keeping to herself in the gritty outskirts of the kingdom of Otacia.
Until the day a job gone awry lands Lena in ruthless hands, only to be saved by Quill Callon, a handsome swordsman from the wealthy Inner Ring. As Quill begins to train Lena to defend herself, her growing feelings for him serve as a cruel reminder that to reveal what she is would only be a death sentence.
Crown Prince Silas La’Rune has been a prisoner inside his own castle since he was five years old—after the murder of his younger sister. But the day he manages to escape the changes everything.
Tragedy rips Lena away from the man she has grown to love before she can confess her true identity. Yet, when their paths collide again years later, it’s clear that things will never be the same.
And when Lena and other Mages are captured by the kingdom’s bloodthirsty heir bent on exacting punishment, the fate of Magekind will rest on her shoulders.
Satanic Shadows by Leigh Rivers
In the shadows, he waits.
Seraphine Winters had a normal life, one she misses when she's kidnapped and taken to an island in the middle of nowhere.
Forced to attend Quarrierton Academy, a castle full of immortal beings, the only way she can leave is if she passes all her classes.
But as a human, she's hated just for breathing, with no way to fit in around magic and powers she never knew existed.
And who doesn't hate mortals more than Dane Dalton?
The Shadow Prince loathes everything about her, yet there are more secrets and lies than truths between the pair, and it's a race against time when the curse is revealed.
Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
There are only two rules to the game. Stay alive. And don’t fall in love.
When Ophelia’s sister disappears, there is only one way to save her. Ophelia must enter Phantasma, a deadly contest inside a haunted mansion, and claim its prize—a single wish.
Phantasma is a maze of twisting corridors and lavish ballrooms, of demons and temptations. Ophelia will face nine challenges, each more dangerous than the last. There can only be one winner, and the other contestants will stop at nothing to eliminate their rivals.
Every day the house creates new monsters. But just as Ophelia’s fears threaten to overwhelm her, a mysterious stranger offers her a bargain.
Charming, arrogant and infuriatingly attractive, Blackwell claims he can guide her through the lethal trials ahead. All he asks in return is ten years of her life.
Ophelia knows she shouldn’t trust him. Blackwell doesn’t seem dangerous, but appearances can be deceptive. Worse still, she feels a dark and irresistible attraction drawing them closer and closer.
Her life is on the line. But in Phantasma, the only thing deadlier than losing the game is losing your heart…
The Ever King by L.J. Andrews
They stole his crown. So he stole their daughter....
For years, Erik, the scarred king of the Ever Kingdom, has thought of nothing but vengeance against the man who killed his father and trapped him beneath the waves, making him a prisoner in his own realm.
Until his enemy’s daughter unintentionally breaks the chains on the Ever, and Erik makes her the unwitting pawn in his vicious game of revenge.
She’s innocent. He’s vicious.
But he will take back what he lost, no matter the price.
Unless she steals his heart first.
Rain of Shadows and Endings by Melissa K. Roehrich
A world the gods forgot.
Of all the worlds and life they created, the gods favored their children the most. But with that favor came the fear that their Legacy would one day become too powerful and overthrow them. Devram was created. A realm hidden amongst the stars. The gods gave their Legacy the best of all the worlds, and then they left, a sworn agreement to never return and to never interfere.
A historical event.
Forced to a life of servitude, the Fae are required to provide for the Legacy in more ways than one. Every five years, the eligible Fae are gathered for the Selection and assigned to serve in one of the six Kingdoms. To be chosen as the personal Source for a Kingdom Heir is the greatest honor, and for the first time in a millennia, all six Kingdoms have heirs choosing a Source. But their selections could tip the power balance a little too far.
A chosen that was never meant to be.
Tessalyn Asura was as forgotten as the realm. But when she finds herself the personal Source to the Heir of Endings, she winds up serving in the darkest Kingdom of them all . The secrets within the Arius Kingdom are meant to be learned and kept, but this was never the life she wanted. Fighting not only the fate thrust upon her, but the temptation to lose herself to desire, Tessa will do anything to escape her new destiny. Until she starts to realize maybe their world wasn’t as forgotten as they thought, and maybe she’s the reason why.
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MC Romance Books
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