Books Like Young Royals: 13 Prince, Boarding School & Class-Divide MM Romances to Read Next (2026)
Books like Young Royals are hard to find because the show does something very specific: a crown prince at an elite boarding school, a working-class scholarship boy who sings in the chapel choir, and a love that the institution, the family and the press all want to erase. Netflix’s Swedish drama ended with its third and final season in March 2024, and fans have been rewatching Wilhelm and Simon ever since. This list finds the books that hit the same nerves for adult readers: princes and heirs who can’t choose freely, boarding schools and old universities, class gaps that cost something and closeted men in the public eye, with heat levels on every pick, from closed door to explicit.
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What Makes Young Royals Work
Prince Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding) is sent to Hillerska, a prestigious boarding school, to stay out of trouble. Simon Eriksson (Omar Rudberg) is a day student from the town, there on merit rather than money. Wilhelm falls for him, and then his older brother’s death makes him crown prince, and suddenly every choice he makes belongs to the monarchy. Over three seasons (2021 to 2024) the show stacks a leaked video, a scheming cousin, a mother who is also the head of state and a school built to protect people like Wilhelm and keep people like Simon out.
So the readalikes need at least one of these: a royal or an heir whose duty is the obstacle, an elite school or university as a pressure cooker, a class gap that makes the less powerful partner pay more, or a man forced to love in secret because of who’s watching. Most Young Royals-adjacent fiction is young adult. The picks below are adult or adult-friendly, and our Fractal Enigma picks at the end take the same tensions into Inferno territory.
Books Like Young Royals: Princes and Heirs
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The obvious first stop, and the right one. Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the first woman US president; Prince Henry is fourth in line to the British throne. After a royal-wedding disaster forces them into a fake friendship, they fall into a secret romance, and Henry’s family makes it very clear what a gay prince is allowed to want. The 2023 Prime Video film starring Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine is the closest thing to Young Royals in English. See our Red, White & Royal Blue readalikes.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️ Mild
See Red, White & Royal Blue on Amazon →
King of the Crease by A.J. Truman
A 2026 release with a premise Young Royals fans will love. Nick is the closeted Crown Prince of Ardenia, hiding out in America as an accountant from Baltimore. He joins a local beer-league hockey team as its rusty backup goalie and falls for Hank, a forty-something single-dad plumber. Then a viral post exposes them, and Nick is called home to a father who expects him to marry a woman and produce an heir. Funny, spicy and a standalone in The Comebacks series.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Open door
See King of the Crease on Amazon →
Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell
Royal duty in space. Prince Kiem of the Iskat Empire is ordered to marry Count Jainan of a vassal planet after Jainan’s husband, another prince, dies, and an interstellar treaty depends on everyone believing the match is real. Two men performing a relationship for the court and the press while the real one grows underneath, which is Wilhelm and Simon’s whole third season.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️ Mild
See Winter’s Orbit on Amazon →
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Prince Kadou is anxious, overlooked and desperate to win back his sister the sultan’s favor after an incident leaves several of his bodyguards dead. His new guard, Evemer, is rigid, cold and openly thinks Kadou is a coward. Investigating a break-in at a guild, the two uncover a plot against the royal family and fall into a slow, devoted romance. A prince who feels unworthy of the role and the commoner who sees him clearly.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️ Mild
See A Taste of Gold and Iron on Amazon →
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
The darkest pick here, and a cult favorite. Damen, the rightful heir of Akielos, is betrayed by his half brother and sent as a slave to Prince Laurent of Vere, the enemy whose brother Damen killed. Hiding who he is, Damen is drawn into Laurent’s fight for his own throne. Court politics, a cold and brilliant prince and enemies to lovers across three books (Captive Prince, Prince’s Gambit, Kings Rising). Check content warnings: slavery and sexual violence are part of the world.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Captive Prince on Amazon →
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
A golden prince and an outsider who loves him. Patroclus, an exiled boy, grows up at the court of Achilles’ father and becomes the one person who knows Achilles beyond the prophecy and the glory. Literary, not a genre romance, and it ends the way the myth ends, but no book does the “you’ll always be a prince and I’ll always be the one who isn’t” ache better. Our Song of Achilles readalikes go further.
Heat: 🌶️ Closed door
See The Song of Achilles on Amazon →
Boarding Schools, Old Universities and Class
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
Watford School of Magicks is the closest literary cousin to Hillerska: an ancient British boarding school with its own politics and a headmaster who runs the magical world. Simon Snow, the Chosen One, starts his final year sharing a room with his nemesis, Baz Grimm-Pitch, who is very possibly a vampire. Rivals to lovers, a school that’s using them both and a sequel trilogy (Wayward Son, Any Way the Wind Blows). Young adult, but read by plenty of adults.
Heat: 🌶️ Closed door
See Carry On on Amazon →
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Written in 1913 and 1914 and only published in 1971, after Forster’s death. Maurice Hall goes from school to Cambridge, where his friend Clive Durham loves him on Clive’s terms, then abandons him to marry. Years later, Maurice falls for Alec Scudder, the under-gamekeeper on the Durham estate, and has to decide whether to give up his class and position for him. The original class-gap love story with a happy ending, and the 1987 film with James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves is the perfect Young Royals chaser.
Heat: 🌶️ Closed door
See Maurice on Amazon →
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Middle-class Charles Ryder meets Lord Sebastian Flyte at Oxford and is swept into the world of Sebastian’s aristocratic Catholic family and their great house. The bond between the two young men is never named, and Sebastian’s family is the reason why. Not a romance, but if what got you about Young Royals was an outsider falling for a beautiful, doomed boy and his impossible family, this is the source.
Heat: 🌶️ Closed door
See Brideshead Revisited on Amazon →
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
Seven students in their final year at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, an elite Shakespeare school, live in a dormitory called the Castle and play the same roles on stage and off. When one of them dies, Oliver Marks confesses to protect James, his best friend and the boy he loves. A dark academia thriller rather than a romance, with the same claustrophobic institution and secrets the show runs on.
Heat: 🌶️ Closed door
See If We Were Villains on Amazon →
Top Secret by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
The adult romance version of the scholarship-boy gap. At Derby College, old-money Keaton Hayworth III and scholarship student Luke Bailey are rivals for fraternity president, with no idea they’ve been confiding in each other anonymously on a kink app. Rich boy, working boy, an institution that matters too much and a reveal that forces them to choose.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Open door
See Top Secret on Amazon →
A Gentleman’s Position by KJ Charles
Regency London. Lord Richard Vane is the principled friend everyone relies on, and David Cyprian, his valet, is the gifted fixer who solves his problems and the man Richard wants more than anything. Richard refuses to act, because a gentleman does not pursue a servant. David decides to change his mind. The power gap between Wilhelm and Simon, made explicit in every sense. Book three of the Society of Gentlemen, readable alone.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See A Gentleman’s Position on Amazon →
Role Model by Rachel Reid
For the “everyone is watching” half of the show. Hockey player Troy Barrett is traded to Ottawa after a scandal and a breakup, closeted and furious with himself. Harris Drover is the team’s out, endlessly upbeat social media manager, the one person whose job is managing Troy’s image and the one person Troy can’t perform for. The book the second season of the Heated Rivalry series is adapting.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Role Model on Amazon →
Read Next: Hotter Picks From Fractal Enigma
Young Royals is about an heir who isn’t allowed to choose and a boy from the wrong side of the money who refuses to be hidden. These four from our shelf keep that power gap, the family pressure and the secrecy, and then let the two men be together on the page. Every pick is Inferno heat with a guaranteed HEA. Our Rafe Calder crime-world guide has more heirs.
Kept on Campus — Jace Wilder
Wilhelm and Simon’s money gap on a college campus, with the restraint removed. Noah Price is brilliant, broke and one bad month from dropping out when his rent doubles. Adrian Lang, the richest guy on campus, offers him a furnished apartment in a building his family owns. No rent, no catch, he says. Adrian doesn’t do charity; he does investments, and he’s decided Noah is his best one. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Class Difference, College Romance, Possessive Hero, Kept Boy, D/s Dynamic, Praise Kink
Start reading Kept on Campus →
Fake Fiancé, Real Fiasco — Jace Wilder
An heir, a family estate and a commoner pretending to belong. Theo Callahan is one dissertation chapter and two maxed-out credit cards from rock bottom when a stranger in a $6,000 suit offers a deal: four weeks as his fake fiancé, and every dollar of Theo’s student debt disappears. Julian Ashford doesn’t do feelings, he does strategy, and the strategy needs a convincing partner at the family estate. One bed, a class clash and a lie that becomes the truest thing either man has.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Dating, Inheritance Scheme, Class Clash, One Bed, He Falls First, Touch Starved
Start reading Fake Fiancé, Real Fiasco →
His Rival’s Bodyguard — Rafe Calder
A defiant prince of a different kind of dynasty. Luca Moretti’s father died with a bullet in his chest and Roman Varga’s name on his lips. Now Luca is heir to a crime family, and the only man keeping him alive is Roman: the enemy, the stoic protector, the one he can’t stop wanting. A dark MM mafia romance with written terms, one bed and a man who would burn the city down for him. Book one of Kings of Harbor City; available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Mafia Heir × Enemy Bodyguard, Stoic Protector × Defiant Prince, Enemies to Lovers, Only One Bed, Touch Him and Die, Morally Grey Heroes
Start reading His Rival’s Bodyguard →
The Rival’s Ring — Rafe Calder
Two heirs, one public performance. Finn O’Rourke and Maximo Alvarez are rival heirs who put on engagement rings to stop a war between their families: eight weeks, one penthouse and a relationship staged for everyone watching. They already share one night from six years ago neither has forgotten. Duty, a dynasty and a ring that was supposed to be fake. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Engagement, Rival Mafia Heirs, Marriage of Convenience, Forced Proximity, Second Chance, He Falls First
Start reading The Rival’s Ring →
FAQ: Books Like Young Royals
Is Young Royals based on a book?
No. Young Royals is an original Netflix series from Sweden, not an adaptation, which is why fans end up looking for readalikes instead of a source novel.
Will there be a Young Royals season 4?
No. Season 3, released in two parts on March 11 and March 18, 2024, was the final season.
Which book should I read first after Young Royals?
Red, White & Royal Blue for the prince, Maurice for the class gap, and Carry On for the boarding school. For an adult romance with real heat, start with Top Secret or A Gentleman’s Position.
How spicy are these books?
They range from closed door (Maurice, Carry On, The Song of Achilles) to explicit (Captive Prince, A Gentleman’s Position, Role Model), labeled on every pick. Our spice levels guide explains the scale.
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