Dystopian Romance Books for Adults, and What Dystopian Romantasy Is

Dystopian romance books put a love story inside a broken, controlling society, and the love story gets as much weight as the fight against the system. Most of the famous ones are YA, so this list starts with the adult dystopian romance books and then goes back to the YA ones that started it.

Look up the best dystopian romance books and nearly every list is YA, built on the same handful of titles. The adult shelf is newer and, to be honest, a bit thin so far. My own genre, dystopian romantasy, sits right next door (more on that below).

What does dystopian romance mean?

Dystopian romance means a story set in an oppressive or collapsed society (a regime, a caste system, a world after something went very wrong) where the romance is a main plot and gets as many pages as the rebellion. Parts of the book trade have started calling it "dystomance".

In a lot of the older YA dystopias the romance is a strand rather than the centre. The Hunger Games is the obvious example: the love story matters, but the Games come first.

When a regime decides who gets to love whom, a lot of these love stories become forbidden romance by default. The rest of the usual suspects are in the romantasy tropes guide.

Dystopian romance vs dystopian romantasy

Romantasy is fantasy with a romance plot (Merriam-Webster describes it as fantasy worldbuilding blended with romantic storylines). Dystopian romantasy is romantasy set in an oppressive society: same regime, same rebellion, but the powers are magic or magic-like instead of science fiction. Nobody has published a formal definition that I could find, so take that one as mine.

In practice the line is blurry. Red Queen and Powerless sit on the romantasy side: powers in the blood, a ruling elite and a girl who has to pass as something she is not. Silver Elite has psychic powers inside a science fiction regime, and it gets filed under both.

It is also what I write. Dustling, my debut, is still in draft, and its pitch line is Red Queen meets Fourth Wing, with Handmaid's Tale edges. You can read what it is about on the book page.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the last name in that pitch line, is a touchstone for adult dystopian fiction. It is literary fiction, though, and not a romance, so it stays off the list below.

"A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze." Holy sh*t, what a quote. This book is so unsettling and so addictive, and I can't deny that my own book is a more fantasy-flavoured mirror of the same warning about society. So yes, I was enthralled by Margaret Atwood's words and her story (even though June in the TV series occasionally p***ed me off).

The Handmaid's Tale came out in 1985, and the future it imagines can seem almost unreal in how frightening it is. But Margaret Atwood has written in The Guardian that, when she wrote it, it mattered to her that the book stayed true to the cruelties humanity has actually committed and suffered through the years.

Five hearts. Wings off, Margaret. Salute.

Dustling isn’t out yet, but you can read Chapter One free.

Dystopian romance books for adults: where to start

This is the short section. Both main picks come from one series, and both are on my TBR, because adult dystopian romance books with the romance at the centre are still fairly new.

Silver Elite by Dani Francis

Wren Darlington hides psychic powers in a regime that hunts people like her, and she is quietly helping the rebellion. One mistake lands her in an elite military training unit, where she plans to work against the regime from the inside. Her commander, Cross Redden, makes that a lot harder.

It came out from Del Rey in May 2025 and is sold as adult dystopian romance, shelved under science fiction romance and dystopian. That is why it earned its spot on my TBR: a dystopia written for adults, with the love story in the middle of it.

Broken Dove by Dani Francis

The sequel came out on 12 May 2026. Going only on the publisher's description (so, spoilers for book one): Wren's cover is gone, she is working with the Uprising in allied territory, Cross is still undercover, and an old friend, fighter pilot Grayson Blake, complicates things.

Den of Geek put it on its 2026 list as a romantasy sequel with even more dystopian worldbuilding.

Other readers: reviews split over the love triangle, with some feeling Cross gets sidelined and the Grayson storyline arrives suddenly, while others praise the tension, the intrigue and the ending.

A footnote: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

If you want the war more than the kissing, this is the one. Red Rising is set on a Mars ruled by colour castes, where a Red miner called Darrow is remade so he can infiltrate the ruling Golds. There is romance, but it is not the centre, so it gets a footnote rather than a full entry.

The YA dystopian romance books that started it

These are the books the genre still gets measured against, and the trade press credits Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth with driving the current dystopian romance trend. If you want the Hunger Games feeling with grown-up characters, I have a separate list of books like The Hunger Games for adults.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister's place for a televised fight to the death, run by a Capitol that keeps its districts in line with it. A romance played for the cameras becomes part of how she survives.

The Hunger Games is part of my childhood. It was the third big franchise of my teens, after Harry Potter and Twilight. What I love about it as an adult is how Collins wrote Katniss: real, and relatable.

If you have been meaning to go back, the film of Sunrise on the Reaping is due in cinemas on 20 November 2026.

I sincerely believe The Hunger Games is one of the greatest works of dystopian fiction of all time. It hardly needs an introduction, given how popular the films are; introducing it now feels a bit like introducing The Lord of the Rings. One of the smallest details still gives me shivers to this day: the simple cruelty of children from families with too little to eat putting their names in again and again, just to get food for their families. It's pure evil, dystopia and heartbreak. And let's not even talk about the ending of Katniss's story.

Safe to say, it's not a romance book per se. No spice, no miscommunication drama, no queens or kings: just a very, very well-built world, an FMC with obvious flaws and goals, and a book that is just as likely to put me in a reading slump today as the first time I read it. I think that slump lasted until I picked up Fourth Wing and ACOTAR, actually. Kudos, Suzanne Collins.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

In a future Chicago divided into factions by virtue, Beatrice Prior tests as Divergent, joins the warrior faction Dauntless and uncovers a plot against people like her. The romance with her instructor, Four, is a big part of it, but the dystopia drives the plot.

So, I actually spoiled myself with this one. I wanted to know how it ended, and safe to say, I was furious. I didn't finish the series: I DNF'd it quite abruptly once I'd heard the ending. I did watch the films, though. The first one is amazing; after that, they fell short of my (nowadays divine) standards. It's still incredible worldbuilding, story and plot, right up until the ending that wrecked me before I'd even got there. I haven't picked it up since, and I don't plan to. But of course, it gets four hearts for Four.

(Roth has since started a new Divergent duology: book one, The Sixth Faction, came out in October 2026.)

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Society is split by blood: Silvers have powers, and Reds are poor and conscripted. Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red, discovers she can control electricity, is made to pose as a Silver noble betrothed to Prince Maven, and gets drawn into the rebel Scarlet Guard.

I think I read this book and actually forgot to eat. Sure, at some points it reminded me a bit of The Hunger Games, but the plot twists were twisty enough to keep me entertained and happy throughout. It's definitely one for readers who enjoy a love triangle and a fast pace (I felt it was slow at times, but back then it was one of the faster-paced ones). But to be honest... three weeks later I'd already forgotten much of the book, so my rating actually fell from four to three. Maybe that's down to Mare Barrow, and the fact that I just really missed Katniss?

I have not read the sequels.

Other readers: critics noticed the Hunger Games parallels when it came out, and reviews ran from four stars in The Guardian to "over-hyped" in the Grand Forks Herald.

The Powerless trilogy by Lauren Roberts

Paedyn Gray is an Ordinary, born without powers, in a kingdom that hunts Ordinaries. After she saves Prince Kai Azer, she is entered into the deadly Purging Trials and has to pass as an Elite. It started out self-published before Simon & Schuster picked it up in 2023.

Okay, book one. This is unfair, because even though Powerless has obvious similarities to The Hunger Games and Red Queen, the one who carries this series for me is, surprise surprise, Kai Azer. Lauren Roberts did yearning almost illegally well, and Chase Brown, one of the audiobook's two narrators, made the reading experience divine. I took one heart off for the similarities and the drama after the book came out, but I'm incredibly impressed with Lauren Roberts, who was writing this story at 18. And if I'm honest, without weighing in any public opinion, I was more entertained by this series than by Red Queen. That might be down to when I read it and what I wanted back then, but yeah. I guess yearning MMCs are the key to my reading heart.

More in books like The Hunger Games for adults, where Powerless has its own entry.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette Ferrars is seventeen, her touch can kill, and she has been locked in an asylum. The regime, the Reestablishment, wants to use her as a weapon under its young commander, Warner, until she escapes with Adam Kent, a soldier from her past, to a resistance group.

It earned its TBR spot on that premise, and because the romance is central from book one.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

A YA reimagining of the rise of Empress Wu Zetian, with giant mecha. The sequel, Heavenly Tyrant, came out in December 2024. Both are on my TBR for the premise alone.

Dystopian romance books at a glance

If you want less regime and more fae, try books like ACOTAR. If you want romantasy written for readers in their twenties, there is my list of new adult fantasy romance books.

So tell me: which dystopian romance did you start with, and are you still reading YA dystopia as an adult, or have you moved on to the newer adult books?

If a slow burn in a broken world sounds like your kind of trouble, Chapter One of Dustling is free when you join The Wickers Word.

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