NextBookAfter
Get book recommendations that actually understand why you liked something. Built for readers who know why a book worked.
Join the waitlist

Looking for dangerous enemies-to-lovers obsession, brutal action, and irreverent banter after The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas? Quicksilver by Callie Hart awaits.

Curated by NextBookAfter Editors. This read-alike match weighs tone, themes, pacing, character dynamics, and emotional payoff rather than genre alone. See how recommendations are chosen.

Buy on Amazon

Why It's Your Next Read

  • The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds
  • The source's survival-hardened defiance mirrored by Saeris's combativeness
  • Razor-edged banter puncturing equally graphic fantasy violence
  • Destabilizing secrets sustaining the source's suspicious momentum
  • More conventional questing, with less time-bending disorientation
Quicksilver Cover
★★★★☆ 4.30 • Goodreads

Genre

Subgenres

Tags

A fiercely self-reliant thief is pulled from a brutal desert into an icy fae war, where an infuriating warrior becomes both her most dangerous obstacle and her only viable ally. Their sharp-edged attraction burns through violence, hostile bargains, and secrets that keep changing what she thinks she knows.

If The Emperor's Enemy kept you reading for the dangerous uncertainty between Zora and Tarantula, Quicksilver offers the closest continuation of that pressure. Saeris is ripped from a desert ruled by scarcity into an icy fae war, then magically bound to Kingfisher, a secretive warrior willing to use her strange alchemical power. Their alliance turns every bargain into a contest of control, every verbal jab into sexual tension, and every new revelation into another reason not to trust the attraction.

Choose this when hostile chemistry and sharp banter mattered more than the source's disorienting chronology.

Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.

The bond makes them allies; their secrets keep making them enemies.

Buy on Amazon

What Readers Are Saying

"Without a doubt one of my favorite reads of the year! Obsessed is actually the biggest understatement." — Marianna Moore, Goodreads

What Readers Are Saying

"The ending was wild. I loved it. The action and the cliffhanger was chef's kiss." — SK, Goodreads

Awards & Recognition

Show 2 more honors Show fewer honors

Two more ways to follow the feeling

Go Deeper—or Sideways

Cover of A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet

Under the Radar

A Promise of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

A Captive Fights Toward Equality

A sharp-tongued soothsayer hiding from her violent past is abducted by a warlord who needs her rare magic, then fights him at every turn as their dangerous journey turns hostility into hard-won partnership. Meddling gods, magical attacks, and an inconvenient attraction keep raising the stakes while she struggles to retain control of her power and her future.

  • Captivity-forced chemistry echoing Zora and Tarantula's power struggle
  • Another sharp-tongued survivor weaponizing defiance against control
  • The source's wartime danger surrounding every romantic concession
  • Less of the source's identity-shattering suspense, more linear warmth
Buy this book
Cover of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Wildcard Pick

Gideon the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

Necromantic Enemies Solve Murders

A sword-wielding exile is forced to serve as champion to the necromancer she has hated all her life, trapping them together in a decaying palace where an occult contest becomes a murder mystery. Their vicious history and reluctant dependence give the horror, puzzles, and gallows humor an unexpectedly devastating emotional center.

Queer necromantic science fantasy replaces dark romance, but enemy-bound intimacy, vicious humor, and buried truths deliver the same feverish pull.

  • Lifelong enemies recreating the source's reluctant dependence
  • Gideon's irreverent voice echoing the source's violence-cutting snark
  • The source's delayed-information tension recast as murder mystery
  • Queer science-fantasy grief instead of the source's explicit heat
Buy this book

What to read after The Emperor's Enemy

Readers searching for adult books like or similar to The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas usually value these qualities in The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas: the volatile forced-proximity relationship, the irreverent, deliberately anachronistic voice, and delayed-information tension.

If your search is specifically for books similar to The Emperor's Enemy for adults, this match keeps the grown-up stakes, voice, and reader payoff central rather than drifting into younger or purely genre-adjacent suggestions.

If you like The Emperor's Enemy and want to know what to read next, start with Quicksilver. It is the closest NextBookAfter match for readers who want a book like The Emperor's Enemy with the same core appeal.

Quicksilver is a similar next read for fans of The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas. It shares parts of that appeal, while the comparison above identifies both what it preserves and where it departs. It moves through dark fantasy romance and fae romance.

Books like or similar to The Emperor's Enemy: quick answers

What should I read after The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas?
Read Quicksilver for violent enemies-to-lovers chemistry and razor-edged banter; A Promise of Fire for captive-versus-warlord defiance turning toward equality; and Gideon the Ninth for a combat-ready heroine, gallows humor, and a mystery that keeps its deepest truths buried.
If I like The Emperor's Enemy, what should I read next?
Read Quicksilver next. The key point of comparison is this: The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds. Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.
What is a book like The Emperor's Enemy for adults?
Quicksilver is the closest adult readalike here for readers drawn to what The Emperor's Enemy does best: The volatile forced-proximity relationship. The key point of comparison is this: The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds. Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.
What are good books similar to The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas for adults?
Quicksilver matches what readers value in The Emperor's Enemy: The volatile forced-proximity relationship. The key point of comparison is this: The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds. Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.
Is Quicksilver similar to The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas?
Yes. The key point of comparison is this: The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds. Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.
Why recommend Quicksilver for fans of The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas?
Recommend Quicksilver. The key point of comparison is this: The same hostility-to-heat rhythm under forced magical bonds. Hart keeps the temperature high with graphic violence, adult heat, quick banter, and a heroine too survival-hardened to become passive inside someone else's war. The tradeoff is structural: this is a more recognizable portal-fantasy quest than Mas's time-bouncing puzzle, but its hidden magic, guarded hero, and final reversals preserve the pleasure of realizing how much the heroine still does not know.
How many books like The Emperor's Enemy are on this page?
This page lists 3 curated recommendations for readers looking for what to read after The Emperor's Enemy by Jasmine Mas.

Keep us in your search

Make NextBookAfter a preferred source

Add us to make our reading guides more likely to appear when you search on Google.

NextBookAfter participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. The site earns from qualifying purchases made through affiliate links.