20 books to read while you wait for The Winds of Winter

5. The Riyria Revelations

If you’re one of those people who likes a fair amount of swashbuckling in your stories, then The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan has you covered. Consisting of three volumes of two books each, the story of Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn is packed with light adventure. There’s plenty of drama and darkness to keep you flipping the pages, played out by a truly lovable cast of characters, as well as a bromance that would make Peter Jackson proud.

Hadrian Blackwater fights in the ways of the Teshlor Knights of old, and walks around carrying not one, not two, but three swords. His partner Royce is a half-elf with a dark past who has no compunctions about killing someone who annoys him. The interplay between the two main characters is key to what makes these books so good — Royce and Hadrian are brothers in everything but blood, and the lengths that they go to for one another keeps up a steady tug on the heartstrings.

The adventure starts with The Crown Conspiracy, where our never-out-of-sorts heroes turn an ambush by robbers on its head by revealing they are in fact the most notorious pair of criminals in the land. It isn’t long after that Royace and Hadrian are captured and framed for the death of a king. And shortly after that, the pair are released by that same king’s daughter in order to free a wizard and save the kingdom by uncovering the real killers. That sort of cascading plotline is common in these books, and gives them a feel that is almost reminiscent of adventure classics like Treasure Island.

Another nice thing about this series is that at this point there are quite a few more books than just the original six. There are four prequel books, called The Riyria Chronicles, that detail how Royce and Hadrian met, as well as a farther-back-prequel series called The Legends of the First Empire that deals with the ancient lore of the Riyria world. Legends is currently three books deep, but Michael J. Sullivan has gone on the record as saying that he’s written all six books of the series already. They’re being released like clockwork, so you can dig into any of the three series (they don’t need to be read in any particular order) without fear of running out of books.

Fun Fact: The Riyria Revelations are the only books on this list that were originally self-published novels. Due to its popularity, the series was picked up by Orbit, and re-released in the paperback volumes you can now find at book stores.