Books Like The City of Brass
Introduction: What Readers Mean by “Books Like The City of Brass”
When readers ask for books like The City of Brass, they are rarely asking for another generic fantasy. They are asking for something more specific: djinn and the mythologies of the Middle East and South Asia, a con woman or outsider discovering a hidden magical world, and worldbuilding so rich it feels like history. The City of Brass (2017) has all three: Nahri, a con woman in eighteenth-century Cairo who accidentally summons a djinn warrior and is drawn into Daevabad, the legendary city of the djinn - and its centuries of political and religious war. The books that come closest are the ones that find their own way to the same combination.
This guide gathers the strongest readalikes, old and new, with honest content notes and a clear sense of what each book shares with Chakraborty’s epic and where it departs from it.
The Daevabad Trilogy
The books that come closest to The City of Brass are the author’s own continuations of the story.
The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty (2019) is the essential companion: the second volume, set years later, with Daevabad’s political tensions at the breaking point - the old powers, the new generations, the war coming. It deepens everything the first book built, and it is the book that readers of Nahri discover immediately. Content note: an adult fantasy with political intrigue and violence; for mature readers.
The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty (2020) is the essential companion completing the trilogy: the war arrives, the alliances shatter, and the characters must choose what they are fighting for. It is the payoff of the whole arc, and it is for readers who want the complete story. Content note: an adult fantasy with war and violence; for mature readers.
The Djinn and the Historical
A second branch of the family is the fantasy of djinn and historical settings.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (2013) is the essential companion: 1899 New York, where a golem created in Prague and a jinni released from a copper flask in Syria find each other among the immigrants of the Lower East Side. It shares The City of Brass’s djinn, its historical setting and its sense of two worlds colliding - with the pace of a literary novel rather than an epic. Content note: an adult novel with some violence and sensuality; for mature readers.
The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh (2015) is the essential companion about the world of the Nights: a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights in which Shahrzad volunteers to marry the caliph who kills his brides at dawn - and sets out to survive, and to understand, and to avenge. It shares The City of Brass’s setting and its mythology, with the romance turned up. Content note: a young adult fantasy with violence and some sensuality; appropriate for readers from around age fifteen upward.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss (2017) is the essential companion about the daughters of the monsters: Mary Jekyll, Catherine Moreau and the other daughters of Victorian science’s creations, coming together in London to confront their fathers’ work. It shares The City of Brass’s rich historical setting and its ensemble, with the supernatural drawn from a different well. Content note: an adult novel with some violence; for mature readers.
The Rich Worldbuilding
A third branch is the fantasy defined by its worldbuilding.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (2011) is the essential companion about the place you want to live in: a magical circus that appears without warning, and the duel between two young magicians that plays out inside it - in the novel that is famous for its atmosphere. It shares The City of Brass’s sense of a world so fully rendered it feels real, with the politics replaced by enchantment. Content note: an adult novel, clean in the ordinary sense; appropriate for readers from around age fifteen upward.
We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal (2019) is the essential companion about the Middle Eastern-inspired quest: Zafira, the Hunter, who must find a lost artifact on a cursed island - in the novel inspired by the mythologies of the region, with the same sense of legend. It is for readers who loved the setting and want a quest at its center. Content note: a young adult fantasy with violence; appropriate for readers from around age fifteen upward.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967) is the essential classic companion about the supernatural in the city: the devil and his retinue arrive in Stalin’s Moscow - and the novel interweaves the chaos they cause with the story of Pontius Pilate. It is the great literary ancestor of the djinn-in-the-city premise, and it is for readers who want the tradition behind the fantasy. Content note: an adult novel with satire and some darkness; for mature readers.
Themes and Values That Hold the Readalikes Together
Once you have read a few of these books side by side, the shared themes become clear, and they are worth naming because they are what make the category cohere.
The outsider in the hidden world runs through every one of them. The City of Brass’s central engine - Nahri, the con woman with no magic, drawn into the city of the magical - is the load-bearing structure of the whole family. The golem and the jinni are outsiders in New York; Shahrzad is the outsider in the palace; Zafira is the Hunter who hides what she is. The books are united by the conviction that the outsider’s eye is how the world is revealed.
The mythology made real is the second shared value. The category is defined by the djinn, the golems, the Nights, the legends - the mythologies of the Middle East and beyond rendered as living worlds. The books agree that the magic is not decoration but history, and that the mythology is the worldbuilding.
Power and its politics is the third shared shape. The City of Brass is as much about the centuries of war among the djinn tribes as about the magic, and the family keeps the politics: the caliph’s palace, the circus masters’ duel, the fathers’ legacy. The books agree that the fantasy is political, and that the magic is the currency of power.
One more theme is worth naming because it is the one that makes the trilogy addictive: no one is entirely good or entirely evil. Nahri is a con woman with a conscience; Ali is a prince of the oppressing class who wants justice for the oppressed; the great powers of Daevabad have histories that explain their cruelties. The category is united by the conviction that the moral landscape is complicated, that the characters’ loyalties shift as the reader learns more, and that the reader is trusted to hold the contradictions - which is why the books are reread, and why the debates about them never end.
What to Read Next Depends on Why You Loved It
If you loved the story, read The Kingdom of Copper and The Empire of Gold, which complete the trilogy.
If you loved the djinn and the history, read The Golem and the Jinni, which is the closest companion, and The Wrath & the Dawn for the Nights.
If you loved the worldbuilding, read The Night Circus, and The Master and Margarita for the classic.
If you loved the quest and the setting, read We Hunt the Flame.
If you loved the ensemble of the supernatural, read The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter.
Content Notes: What These Books Contain
The City of Brass is an adult fantasy with political intrigue, violence and some sensuality, usually recommended for readers from around age fifteen or sixteen upward. The Kingdom of Copper and The Empire of Gold are similar. The Golem and the Jinni has some violence and sensuality, for mature readers. The Wrath & the Dawn and We Hunt the Flame are young adult fantasies with violence, from around age fifteen. The Night Circus is clean in the ordinary sense, from around age fifteen. The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter has some violence. The Master and Margarita has satire and some darkness. None contain gratuitous content; the weight is thematic. Our meaningful kindness and compassion for adults and our thoughtful guide to truth and integrity offer related reading paths for the questions of power and moral choice these books raise.
A Reading Plan for Book Clubs
The City of Brass generates conversation on every level: the worldbuilding, the politics, the question of what Nahri owes the two men who want to shape her. Some of the best discussion questions come from pairing it with a book that shares or challenges it: read it with The Golem and the Jinni, and compare the two djinns and their two cities; read it with The Wrath & the Dawn, and compare the two heroines of the Nights; read it with The Kingdom of Copper, and ask how the trilogy deepens the world.
A second kind of question turns the discussion toward the politics: which faction of Daevabad would you side with, and what does the choice reveal about your own values? The City of Brass works best in a club because the politics are the machinery - the group can take sides in the centuries of war, and the taking of sides is the conversation.
Conclusion: The City That Keeps Giving
The City of Brass endures because it is about something permanent: the conviction that the outsider’s eye reveals the world, that the mythology is the history, and that the magic is the currency of power. Every book on this list takes one piece of that - the djinn, the politics, the worldbuilding, the quest - and builds its own account around it. The joy of reading them is the joy of watching the same hidden city found in different centuries, different mythologies, different registers. Start with whichever part of Nahri’s story you loved most, and let the comparison teach you what the worldbuilding is really made of. For the full collection of reading paths, start at the Ideas section of our site.
