Books like 'Empress'

Readers who enjoyed Empress by Karen Miller also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

fantasy  high fantasy  dark fantasy  action / adventure  grimdark  military, war & conflict  epic  magic  dark  female-mc 

  • The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie

    The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.59 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    Conspiracy. Betrayal. Rebellion.Peace is just another kind of battlefield...Savine dan Glokta, once Adua’s most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  magic  war  action-adventure  adult  audiobook  book
  • The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

    The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 71 ratings
    The searing follow-up to 2018’s most celebrated fantasy debut – THE POPPY WAR.In the aftermath of the Third Poppy War, shaman and warrior Rin is on the run: haunted by the atrocity she committed to end the war, addicted to opium, and hiding from the murderous commands of her vengeful god, the fiery Phoenix...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  female-mc  magic  myths  retellings  war  action-adventure
  • Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson

    Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars
    · 47 ratings
    The ravaged continent of Genabackis is a terrifying new empire, the Pannion Domin, that devours all. An uneasy allliance resists: Onearm's army, Whiskeyjack's Bridgeburners and former enemies - forces of Warlord Caladan Brood, Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii mages, and the Rhivi people of the plains. And the Crippled God intends revenge...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  magic  myths  retellings  sword-sorcery  war  21st-century
  • The Crippled God by Steven Erikson

    The Crippled God by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 39 ratings
    The Bonehunters march for Kolanse, led by Adjunct Tavore. This woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, will challenge the gods - if her own mutinous troops don't kill her first.Her enemy, the Forkrul Assail, seek to cleanse the world, to annihilate everything...
  • The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

    The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars
    · 43 ratings
    The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha'ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y'Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it was here that the Empire's greatest champion Dassem Ultor was slain and a tide of Malazan blood spilled...
  • Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

    Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 58 ratings
    The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm.” Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of ten when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith...
  • The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks

    The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 63 ratings
    Gavin Guile is dying.He’d thought he had five years left—now he has less than one. With fifty thousand refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancée who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies.Worst of all, the old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable...
  • The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

    The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

    Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    A mother struggling to repress her violent past,A son struggling to grasp his violent future,A father blind to the danger that threatens them all...
  • Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

    Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars
    · 69 ratings
    Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It’s enough to make a torturer want to run – if he could even walk without a stick.Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country...
  • Ruin by John Gwynne

    Ruin by John Gwynne

    Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    The Banished Lands are engulfed in war and chaos. The cunning Queen Rhin has conquered the west and High King Nathair has the cauldron, most powerful of the seven treasures. At his back stands the scheming Calidus and a warband of the Kadoshim, dread demons of the Otherworld. They plan to bring Asroth and his host of the Fallen into the world of flesh, but to do so they need the seven treasures...
  • Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson

    Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 42 ratings
    After decades of warfare, the five tribes of the Tiste Edur are united under the implacable rule of the Warlock King of the Hiroth. But the price of peace is a pact with a hidden power whose motives may be deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether has devoured all lesser neighbors - except the Tiste Edur...
  • The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks

    The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 51 ratings
    As the old gods awaken, the Chromeria is in a race to find its lost Prism, the only man who may be able to stop catastrophe, Gavin Guile. But Gavin's enslaved on a galley, and when he finally escapes, he finds himself in less than friendly hands. Without the ability to draft which has defined him . .
  • Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson

    Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor, while the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against its own people. The Errant, once a farseeing god, is suddenly blind to the future...
  • The Light of All That Falls by James Islington

    The Light of All That Falls by James Islington

    Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    The Light of All That Falls concludes the epic adventure that began in The Shadow of What Was Lost, the acclaimed fantasy blockbuster from James Islington.The Boundary is whole once again, but it may be too late.Banes now stalk Andarra, while in Ilin Illan, the political machinations of a generation come to a head as Wirr's newfound ability forces his family's old enemies into action...
  • Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 66 ratings
    Geralt is a witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.This is a collection of short stories, following the adventures of the hit collection THE LAST WISH...
  • Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence

    Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence

    Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars
    · 41 ratings
    Second novel in the brilliant series from the bestselling author of Prince of Thorns.In Mystic Class Nona Grey begins to learn the secrets of the universe. But so often even the deepest truths just make our choices harder...
  • House of Chains by Steven Erikson

    House of Chains by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars
    · 47 ratings
    An alternate cover edition can be found here.In Northern Genabackis, a raiding party of savage tribal warriors descends from the mountains into the southern flatlands. Their intention is to wreak havoc amongst the despised lowlanders, but for the one named Karsa Orlong it marks the beginning of what will prove to be an extraordinary destiny...
  • Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson

    Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 39 ratings
    In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow...
  • Deadhouse Landing by Ian C. Esslemont

    Deadhouse Landing by Ian C. Esslemont

    Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    After the disappointments of Li Heng, Dancer and Kellanved wash up on a small insignificant island named Malaz. Immediately, of course, Kellanved plans to take it over. To do so they join forces with a small band of Napans who have fled a civil war on their own home island...
  • A Time of Courage by John Gwynne

    A Time of Courage by John Gwynne

    Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars
    · 26 ratings
    Battle the darkReclaim the worldThe Demon-King of the Otherworld is finally free. And armed with mighty new starstone weapons, Asroth prepares to lead his demonic war-host south. With the help of his dark bride Fritha, he plans to crush the warrior-angels and their allies.In the shadows of Forn Forest, Riv and the surviving Ben-Elim hold a war council...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  magic  war  action-adventure  adult  audiobook  book
  • The Burning God by R.F. Kuang

    The Burning God by R.F. Kuang

    Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars
    · 43 ratings
    The exciting end to The Poppy War trilogy, R. F. Kuang’s acclaimed, award-winning epic fantasy that combines the history of twentieth-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating, enthralling effect.After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  female-mc  magic  myths  retellings  war  action-adventure
  • The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter

    The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 33 ratings
    In order to reclaim her throne and save her people, an ousted queen must join forces with a young warrior in the second book of this "relentlessly gripping, brilliant" epic fantasy series from a breakout author (James Islington).Tau and his Queen, desperate to delay the impending attack on the capital by the indigenous people of Xidda, craft a dangerous plan...
  • Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars
    · 62 ratings
    The New York Times bestselling series that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher The Wizards Guild has been shattered by a coup and, in the uproar, Geralt was seriously injured. The Witcher is supposed to be a guardian of the innocent, a protector of those in need, a defender against powerful and dangerous monsters that prey on men in dark times...
  • The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell

    The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    He was known as Druss. The Deathwalker. Though the blood of merciless butchers coursed through his veins, he had found a fragile peace through his love for beautiful, mystical Rowena. Then came the day when Druss returned to their village and found everyone dead--massacred by slavers who had stolen the women to sell for gold. Rowena was among the missing...
  • A Practical Guide to Evil III by ErraticErrata

    A Practical Guide to Evil III by ErraticErrata

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 10 ratings
    ...
    Categorized as:
    epic  magic  female-mc  sword-sorcery  dark  war  fantasy  young-adult
  • Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson

    Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    In war everyone loses. This brutal truth can be seen in the eyes of every soldier in every world…In Letherii, the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen.And in these same Wastelands, others gather to confront their destinies...
  • The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

    The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 46 ratings
    They say Black Dow's killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbor, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud...
  • Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks

    Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks

    Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars
    · 69 ratings
    A new queen has usurped the throne and is leading Cenaria into disaster. The country has become a broken realm with a threadbare army, little food and no hope. So Kylar Stern plans to reinstate his closest friend Logan as King, but can he really get away with murder?In the north, the Godking's death has thrown Khalidor into civil war...
  • Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

    Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 38 ratings
    Nona Grey's story reaches its shattering conclusion in the third instalment of Book of the Ancestor.THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WOMAN.The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor's armies are in retreat...
  • Dancer's Lament by Ian C. Esslemont

    Dancer's Lament by Ian C. Esslemont

    Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars
    · 31 ratings
    Taking Malazan fans back to that troubled continent's turbulent early history. The opening chapter in Ian C. Esslemont's epic new fantasy sequence, the Path to Ascendancy trilogy.For ages warfare has crippled the continent as minor city states, baronies, and principalities fought in an endless round of hostilities...
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized by ErraticErrata

    The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized by ErraticErrata

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 12 ratings
    The southern half of Callow is in open rebellion against the Empire.As she had a hand in starting that fire, it’s only fitting that Catherine’s own legion is being sent into the fray. The Lone Swordsman and his posse of heroes are out for her head on a pike but her most dangerous enemy might just be on the same side: the Heiress has escalated their rivalry to a new level of deadliness...
    Categorized as:
    magic  epic  dark  female-mc  war  fantasy  fiction  young-adult
  • The Tower of the Swallow by Andrzej Sapkowski

    The Tower of the Swallow by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 54 ratings
    The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life. But the net around her is closing. Geralt, the Witcher, has assembled a group of allies determined to rescue her. Both sides of the war have sent brutal mercenaries to hunt her down...
  • The Swords of Night and Day by David Gemmell

    The Swords of Night and Day by David Gemmell

    Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars
    · 34 ratings
    Even in death, Skilgannon the Damned's name lives on. Now, as an ancient evil threatens to flood the Drenai heartlands in a tide of blood, he returns...A thousand years after they fell in battle, two heroes - Druss and Skilgannon - are revered throughout the war-torn lands of the Dernai, where men and women live in abject fear of the dark sorceress known as the Eternal..
  • The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence

    The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    From the international bestselling author of the Broken Empire Trilogy, the thrilling conclusion to the Red Queen’s War... Mark Lawrence’s “epic fantasy” (The Washington Post) continues as a reluctant prince returns from the bowels of Hell to engage in his greatest battle yet—among the living and the dead...
    Categorized as:
    anti-hero  dark  epic  magic  myths  retellings  sword-sorcery  war
  • Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

    Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars
    · 46 ratings
    They burned her home.They stole her brother and sister.But vengeance is following.Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company...
  • Blood Will by Kirill Klevanski

    Blood Will by Kirill Klevanski

    Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars
    · 23 ratings
    He made a deal with a dragon, getting its heart in return. He fought monsters to defeat the monster in himself. He won the war, razing one of the most powerful sects to the ground, and received the highest military rank possible.Now his path leads him to the very heart of the country — to the capital — to receive his title and well-deserved honors...
  • The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron

    The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron

    Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    SOME ARE BORN TO POWERSOME SEIZE ITAND SOME HAVE THE WISDOM NEVER TO WIELD ITThe Red Knight has stood against soldiers, against armies and against the might of an empire without flinching. He's fought on real and on magical battlefields alike, and now he's facing one of the greatest challenges yet.A tournament...
  • A Time of Blood by John Gwynne

    A Time of Blood by John Gwynne

    Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Defy the darkness. Defend the light.Drem and his friends are haunted by the horrors they witnessed at the battle at Starstone Lake: the screams of men being warped into beasts and the sight of a demon rising from the dead. But worse than any memory is Fritha, the demons' deadly high priestess. And she is hunting them...
    Categorized as:
    dark  epic  magic  war  action-adventure  audiobook  book  dark-fantasy
  • King of Assassins by R.J. Barker

    King of Assassins by R.J. Barker

    Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    The epic conclusion to RJ Barker's debut fantasy trilogy, set in a world ravaged by magic, featuring a cast of assassins, knights, and ambitious noblemen.Many years of peace have passed in Maniyadoc, years of relative calm for the assassin Girton Club-Foot. Even the Forgetting Plague, which ravaged the rest of the kingdoms, seemed to pass them by...
  • Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

    Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 67 ratings
    Springtime in Styria. And that means war. Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white...
  • Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 71 ratings
    Geralt is a witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary murderer: his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.This is a collection of short stories, following the adventures of the hit collection THE LAST WISH...
  • The Burning White by Brent Weeks

    The Burning White by Brent Weeks

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    In this stunning conclusion to the epic New York Times bestselling Lightbringer series, kingdoms clash as Kip struggles to escape his family's shadow in order to protect the land and people he loves.Gavin Guile, once the most powerful man the world had ever seen, has been laid low. He's lost his magic, and now he is on a suicide mission. Failure will condemn the woman he loves...
  • Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan

    Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 38 ratings
    An epic new fantasy series from Brian McClellan, set in the world of his wildly popular Powder Mage trilogy. A world on the cusp of a new age... The young nation of Fatrasta is a turbulent place -- a frontier destination for criminals, fortune-hunters, brave settlers, and sorcerers seeking relics of the past...
  • Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan

    Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan

    Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    As the final battle approaches a sellsword, a spy, and a general must find unlikely and dangerous allies in order to turn the tides of war in this epic fantasy tale of magic and gunpowder by acclaimed author Brian McClellan...
  • The Empire's Ruin by Brian Staveley

    The Empire's Ruin by Brian Staveley

    Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars
    · 20 ratings
    One soldier will bear the hopes of an empireThe Kettral were the glory and despair of the Annurian Empire – elite soldiers who rode war hawks into battle. Now the Kettral’s numbers have dwindled and the great empire is dying. Its grip is further weakened by the failure of the kenta gates, which granted instantaneous access to its vast lands...
  • The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

    The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 75 ratings
    Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies...
  • Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks

    Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks

    Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars
    · 69 ratings
    The second novel in the Night Angel trilogy, the breakneck epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Brent Weeks.Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. The Godking's successful coup has left Kylar's master, Durzo, and his best friend, Logan, dead. He is starting over: new city, new friends, and new profession...
  • Waylander by David Gemmell

    Waylander by David Gemmell

    Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    All of Waylander's instincts had screamed at him to spurn the contract from Kaem the cruel, the killer of nations. But he had ignored them. He had made his kill. And even as he went to collect his gold, he knew that he had been betrayed...
  • The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

    The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 40 ratings
    The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable fight for almost two hundred years. Their society has been built around war and only war. The lucky ones are born gifted. One in every two thousand women has the power to call down dragons. One in every hundred men is able to magically transform himself into a bigger, stronger, faster killing machine...
  • Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

    Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

    Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars
    · 44 ratings
    King Jorg Ancrath is twenty now—and king of seven nations. His goal—revenge against his father—has not yet been realized, and the demons that haunt him have only grown stronger. Yet no matter how tortured his path, he intends to take the next step in his upward climb. Jorg would be emperor. It is a position not to be gained by the sword but rather by vote...
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