YA Fantasy Books With No Love Triangles – Part 5

Posted in Lists & Memes by

This is a multi part blog post series featuring the YA Fantasy books without love triangles, where romance is minimal or not central to the plot. I did my best to include the books which would be enjoyable reads for the grown up YA Fantasy lovers and inspiring for the young people, where they could read about heroic adventures, friendship, loyalty, responsibility, survival, consequences of decisions, etc something other than romance and ‘which lover should the protagonist choose’ stuff.

See Part 1 here

See Part 2 here

See Part 3 here

See Part 4 here

I included the Goodreads links to make things easier so clicking on the image will take you to the Goodreads profiles of the series/books.

Shattered Sea by Joe Abercrombie

This masterpiece series by the Lord of Grimdark has been the talk of the town for quite some time. It’s YA grimdark and a lot of people love it to death. I haven’t read it just yet but planning to read it this year. Judging from his First Law trilogy -of whcih I’ve read the first book- I expect it to be an awesome read. You can’t go wrong with Abercrombie!


Court of Fives by Kate Elliott

This one is in my TBR list and I’ve heard a lot of good talk about it too. Only the first book is out yet but the series sounds quite promising.

The Queen’s Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

This award winning series has received tons of great feedback and some people are saying it’s on par with the Patrick Rothfuss books. It’s a historical YA fantasy in an ancient Greece inspired setting, features a thief main character and sounds like a superb story. Well I have a thing for heist stories and ancient Greece so I’m sold. I will definitely review this series soon!

The Grisha series by Leigh Bardugo

This one shows up in a lot of book blogs I follow and it’s being hyped, but it sounds quite intriguing unlike some other hyped up books out there. There is romance but judging from the blurbs and the reviews it’s not the main plot and also there are no stupid love triangles. The plot and the setting sound interesting, it has some Russian culture elements which is a nice change. I also loved the covers so I placed this series high up in my TBR list. The beautiful covers only get the books into my TBR, but the blurbs that intrigue me, recommendations form my bookish friends and the reviews move them to the top.

There are a bunch of extra stories in this series, be sure to check them out when you click on the covers below and go to the Goodreads page of the series!

Curse Workers by Holly Black

This is a paranormal YA urban fantasy series set in an alternate reality. The magic concept sounds interesting, I’ll certainly give it a try.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (standalone novel)

This one is a vintage-contemporary type of fairy tale theme and received a lot of good reviews. There is a bit of a romance but it’s low profile and not central to the plot.

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (standalone novel)

This is a paranormal thriller, a ghost story in a contemporary setting featuring two best friends. Not exactly fantasy but sounds like it might be interesting to some of my readers so I included it in the mix.


This concludes Part 5. See you next week in Part 6!
If you have any recommendations, feel free to let me know and I will add them too. The only requirement is non-romance plot and no love triangles.

13 thoughts on “YA Fantasy Books With No Love Triangles – Part 5”

  1. Wow! This is a really impressive list so far, Leona. I’ve read quite a few of the books / series you have in all five parts, and several others are on my TBR list. I can also think of a few others that might be worth including:

    – Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy (there is romance, but no love triangle; plus, there’s a lot more going on in the plot)
    – Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising Sequence (I don’t remember seeing this on the previous parts… I’ve only read the first book so far, but there was no romance)
    – V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic (I haven’t read it yet, but a lot of people have commented on how it shows a great non-romantic relationship between the male and female protagonists)
    – Maria V. Snyder’s Study series (same case as with Daughter of Smoke and Bone)
    – Danielle L. Jensen’s Stolen Songbird (see above)
    – Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows (comes out next month, but I read an ARC last week and it definitely qualifies for your list)

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    • Wow, that is such a great list! I will include those in the upcoming parts. Thank you for the great recommendations. Is romance the central plot in Daughter of Smoke and Bone? I should definitely read A Darker Shade of Magic, it has been on my radar for some time, and I totally love the pure friendship between opposite genders. I feature such a non-romantic relationship in my WIP book, too. It has always bugged me to see a hot male and female always fall in love in literature, why can’t they be just friends? It bugged me so much I wrote it myself. Incredible attractive male and female main characters, no attraction between them, just pure friendship and loyalty. It happens in real life, it should happen in stories, too!

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  3. Hey, Leona! Great list, as always. I don’t recall if you mentioned it any of your previous posts, but I strongly recommend The Dragonbone Chair, by Tad Williams. It was a big influence on GRRM and the Song of Ice and Fire series. I have not read the rest of the trilogy, but it’s high on my list.

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  5. Do you know “The Last Dragonslayer” books by Jasper Fforde?
    I’d say it qualifies as YA and romance does not really play a part in it. It also features a really cool and strong female protagonist.

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