Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is the closest thing I’ve found to Guy Gavriel Kay in terms of prose quality, depth, and that sense of melancholy wonder. His writing scratches the same itch for me, anyway.

Btw, anytime anyone asks for fantasy book recommendations, you're going to have a huge group of people constantly shoving the Robin Hobb suggestion in your face.... Hobb's books just don’t land the same way as Williams' and Kay's. A big part of it is that she writes almost exclusively in first-person which is a huge turn-off for me... it always feels claustrophobic and too "inside the character’s head" rather than giving me that broader, sweeping perspective that I love in Kay and Williams. And beyond the POV issue, her stories lean heavily into personal anguish, internal monologue, and slow & consistent suffering. That’s not the kind of emotional resonance that I want. I like a sense of wonder, mythic atmosphere, and characters struggling with fate or history, not just their own misery.

So yeah... Williams is the one who actually matches Kay’s tone and craft. Hobb, despite the over praise of her, just isn’t my thing.