Courts and courtiers book series in reading order

by Brandon Sanderson

by Holly Black

by Katharine McGee

by Hilary Mantel

Brandon Sanderson

109 books• 28 series

Brandon Sanderson, born December 19, 1975, is an American writer of high fantasy, science fiction and young adult fiction. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive both belong to the Cosmere, a shared fictional universe. Outside the Cosmere, Sanderson wrote the Reckoners, Skyward and Alcatraz series, and completed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. White Sand and Dark One are Sanderson's two graphic novels. Sanderson's Laws of Magic, a framework for hard and soft magic systems, carry the author's name. The catalogue lists 109 titles, from Centrifugal (1994) through Elantris (2005) to King Lopen the First of Alethkar (2026).

Sarah J. Maas, born March 5, 1986, is an American fantasy author known for three series: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses and Crescent City. The catalogue holds 45 books dated 2012 to 2027, starting in 2012 with The Assassin and the Pirate Lord and Throne of Glass, then Crown of Midnight in 2013. A Court of Splintered Harmony (2026) is the newest release, and A Court of Forgotten Melody is scheduled for 2027. Subjects across the books include fairies, assassins, magic, courts and courtiers, and romance. By 2024 Maas had sold more than 75 million copies, with translations in 40 languages.

Fantasy across three series defines Sarah Maas's catalogued work: Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Crescent City. Twelve books run from Throne of Glass (2012) to House of Earth and Blood, the first Crescent City novel, in 2020, with the standalone Catwoman: Soulstealer (2018) among them. Assassins, fairies, magic and royal courts are the recurring subjects. Maas writes at length, 626 pages at the median.

Holly Black

60 books• 18 series

Holly Black is an American writer and editor, born in 1971, working in children's and young adult fiction, with fantasy and faeries prominent in the subjects. The Spiderwick Chronicles, created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and the Folk of the Air series are the best-known work, and the Modern Faerie Tales form the debut trilogy. The catalogue opens with Tithe (2002) and lists 60 books to 2026, including Curse Workers, Book of Night and the Stolen Heir Duology, with 2 titles shared with Cassandra Clare. Black has received a Nebula Award, a Newbery Honor and a Mythopoeic Award.

Mercedes Lackey

230 books• 52 series

Valdemar, a country in the world of Velgarth, is the setting for many of Mercedes Lackey's interlinked fantasy novels and trilogies. Lackey, an American writer born on June 24, 1950, brings human and non-human protagonists from many cultures together in the Valdemar books. A second Lackey setting resembles Earth but hides populations of elves, mages, vampires and other mythical beings. Bedlam's Bard follows a young man who works magic through music, SERRAted Edge features elves who race cars, and the Diana Tregarde thrillers star a Wiccan fighting evil. Arrows of the Queen (1987), Arrow's Flight (1987) and Arrow's Fall (1988) are among the listed titles, and Elemental Masters and Five Hundred Kingdoms are further series.

Medieval England is Elizabeth Chadwick's period - knights, courts, kings and rulers. The Wild Hunt (1990) opens the catalogue and the trilogy named after it. Later sequences take real figures as their subjects: William Marshal, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the FitzWarin family and Jeanette of Kent. Thirty titles are catalogued, running to The Crownless Queen in 2026, and the novels are long, at a median of 504 pages.

Paul Doherty writes historical mysteries set largely in England, with 127 books catalogued from The Death of a King (1985) to The Meadows of Murder (2026). Recurring detectives include Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan, Kathryn Swinbrooke and Amerotke. Other series cover the Canterbury Tales Mysteries, Ancient Rome, Egyptian Mysteries, Nicholas Segalla, Mathilde of Westminster, Margaret Beaufort and Vlad Drakulya. Satan in St Mary's (1986) and Spy in Chancery (1988) are among the early titles.

Jacqueline Carey

23 books• 6 series

Jacqueline Carey is an American writer, born 9 October 1964, working primarily in fantasy. Kushiel's Legacy is Carey's largest work, split into the Phedre, Imriel and Moirin trilogies and opening with Kushiel's Dart (2001); Phedre no Delaunay is its central character. The 23 catalogued titles run from Angels: Celestial Spirits in Legend and Art (1997) to Cassiel's Servant (2023), and take in the Sundering books, Santa Olivia and the Agent of Hel series. Courts and courtiers, kings and rulers, quests and erotic literature recur as subjects, across books of a median 610 pages.

Rachel Hartman

6 books• 2 series

Young adult fantasy is Rachel Hartman's territory, and dragons, courts and courtiers, music and secrecy run through the subjects of her 6 catalogued books. Two series carry the work: Seraphina, which opens in 2012 and continues in Shadow Scale three years later, and Tess of the Road, begun in 2018 and taken up again with In the Serpent's Wake in 2022. Among Ghosts arrived in 2025. Hartman, born in Kentucky in 1972, also works as an artist of comics.

Linda Chaikin, born 1943, writes Christian historical fiction and sometimes publishes as L. L. Chaikin. Recovery of the Lost Sword (1990) opens a catalogue of 38 books that closes with Jewel of the Pacific in 2013. Nine series divide it, including Dawn of Hawaii, Heart of India, Royal Pavilions, the Egypt Trilogy, Trade Winds and Silk House. The Crusades, pirates, the Second World War and frontier pioneer life supply the historical settings, and the 1990s were Chaikin's peak decade.

Sarah Zettel, born December 14, 1966, is an American author working mainly in science fiction. A first short story reached Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1991, and the debut novel Reclamation followed in 1996 with Fool's War in 1997. Zettel's novels have taken the Philip K. Dick Award and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Romance novels and mysteries appear under the pseudonym Darcie Wilde, and the novel Bitter Angels under C. L. Anderson. The catalogue gathers 36 titles running to The Abduction of Rosalind Thorne (2026), and Isavalta, Paths to Camelot, Useful Woman Mysteries, American Fairy, Palace of Spies and Vampire Chef are among the series on record.

Susan Wiggs has 75 books in the catalogue, published from 1987 to 2025, beginning with Texas Wildflower (1987) and reaching Wayward Girls (2025). Wiggs is an American author of historical and contemporary romance, born on 17 May 1958. Series include Lakeshore Chronicles, Bella Vista Chronicles, Calhoun Chronicles, Heart of the West and the Great Chicago Fire Trilogy. Early titles include Briar Rose (1987), Moonshadow (1989) and The Mistress of Normandy (1991). Catalogue subjects include family life, mothers and daughters and love stories.

Tamora Pierce

34 books• 12 series

Tamora Pierce writes fantasy for younger readers, much of it set in Tortall. Song of the Lioness opens the catalogue with Alanna: The First Adventure (1983), and The Immortals, Protector of the Small, Beka Cooper, Daughter of the Lioness and the Numair Chronicles extend the same world, with knighthood, magic and gender roles among the subjects. Circle of Magic, The Circle Opens and Circle Reforged form a separate sequence. Pierce's 34 catalogued books reach 2025.

Jennifer A. Nielsen

27 books• 6 series

Jennifer A. Nielsen writes adventure and fantasy for younger readers, with conspiracies, courts and imaginary wars in some books and goblins, fairies and magic in others. The Ascendance Trilogy begins at The False Prince (2012), and the Underworld Chronicles, Mark of the Thief and The Traitor's Game make up her other series. Twenty-five catalogued books run from Elliot and the Goblin War (2010) to Magnitude in 2026.

Alison Weir is a British historian and author who writes about English royalty, and about royal women in particular. Weir's first book, Britain's Royal Families (1989), set out a genealogy of the British royal family; biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Katherine Swynford and Elizabeth of York followed, alongside studies of Henry VIII and his court and of the Princes in the Tower. Weir writes historical fiction as well, including the Six Tudor Queens and Tudor Rose novels. The catalogue holds 59 titles between 1989 and 2026, the most recent being The Boleyn Secret.

Bertrice Small

58 books• 9 series

Bertrice Small wrote historical romance on a large scale, much of it around the O'Malley family in the Skye O'Malley Saga and Skye's Legacy. The Border Chronicles, the Friarsgate Inheritance, the Silk Merchant's Daughters, the Wyndham Saga and the World of Hetar, where magic enters, fill out a catalogue of 58 books. Publication runs from Love Wild and Fair and The Kadin (1978) to Serena in 2014.

Barbara Cartland

702 books• 3 series

Barbara Cartland, born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland on 9 July 1901 and died on 21 May 2000, was an English romance novelist and socialite. This directory catalogues 702 titles under Cartland's name, from His Hour (1910) through to A Heart in the Highlands (2024), with the 1980s the heaviest decade. The Eternal Collection, the Pink Collection and the Camfield Novels Of Love group the bulk of that output. Cartland wrote contemporary as well as historical romance, the historical novels set mainly in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and ranks fifth among the most translated authors worldwide.

Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001) was a Scottish novelist whose work is mostly historical fiction. The six-book Lymond Chronicles, opening with The Game of Kings (1961), follow the sixteenth-century adventurer Francis Crawford of Lymond; the eight-book House of Niccolò is a prequel sequence whose central figure is Nicholas Vander Poele. Dunnett also wrote King Hereafter (1982), a novel about Macbeth of Scotland, and the Johnson Johnson mysteries, whose detective works as a portrait painter and spy. Twenty-eight books are catalogued, at a median length of 470 pages.

Katharine McGee

13 books• 3 series

Katharine McGee is an American author of young adult fiction. The Thousandth Floor trilogy - The Thousandth Floor (2016), The Dazzling Heights (2017) and The Towering Sky (2018) - places its teenagers inside a single New York skyscraper. American Royals, which started in 2019 and reached the New York Times young adult bestseller list, imagines an American royal court of princes, princesses and courtiers. Thirteen titles are catalogued, running through the Queens Game books to Ungodly Rich in 2026.

Jason Goodwin

15 books• 2 series

Jason Goodwin writes on two tracks. His nonfiction covers the tea trade, Ottoman history and travel, in A Time for Tea (1990), On Foot to the Golden Horn (1993) and Lords of the Horizons (1998); his fiction is the Yashim series, in which a eunuch detective works cases in nineteenth-century Istanbul, opening with The Janissary Tree (2006). Fifteen catalogued titles close with A Pilgrim's Guide to Sacred London (2017).

Tracy Grant writes historical fiction, with catalogue subjects spanning Regency romance, London, murder and married couples. The 46 books run from Widow's Gambit (1988) to Piccadilly Reckoning (2026). Two series are credited to Grant: Rannoch Fraser Mysteries and the Lescaut/Vaughan Quartet. Early titles include The Courting of Philippa (1989), Frivolous Pretence (1990) and A Touch of Scandal (1991). Grant is still publishing.

Laura Sebastian writes fantasy about princesses and courts. The Ash Princess Trilogy came first: Ash Princess (2018), Lady Smoke (2019) and Ember Queen (2020). Castles in Their Bones (2022) opens the second trilogy, continued by Stardust in Their Veins (2023) and Poison in Their Hearts (2024). Half Sick of Shadows (2021) and Into the Glades (2022) sit outside those runs, Lack and Luster is the third recorded series, and Once Swindled appeared in 2026. Ten books are catalogued, with Twice Charmed scheduled for 2027.

Carolyn Meyer, born June 8, 1935, is an American author of novels for children and young adults, working chiefly in historical fiction. Meyer wrote the Young Royals series and contributed to The Royal Diaries series from Scholastic. The catalogue lists 56 books starting with Miss Patch's Learn-to-Sew Book (1969), and early entries include Amish People: Plain Living In A Complex World (1976). Other series are Hotline and Dog Vacations, and subjects include history, kings and queens, princesses, diaries and African Americans.

Patricia Finney is an English author and journalist who has published twenty-one novels, many set in Elizabethan times, across spy thrillers, crime novels and children's books. A Shadow of Gulls, written when Finney was 18, won the 1977 David Higham Award for Best First Novel, and BBC Radio 3 broadcast her play The Flood the same year. Finney writes as P.F. Chisholm and as Grace Cavendish, the name on the Lady Grace Mysteries. The David Becket and Simon Ames novels - Firedrake's Eye (1992), Unicorn's Blood (1998), Gloriana's Torch (2003) - sit beside the Jack books about a dog. Twenty-eight titles are catalogued.