Age Of X Books in Order

Age Of X is Richelle Mead at her most overtly science fictional, but it still carries many of the things her readers tend to like: strong chemistry between the leads, a layered supernatural system, and a world built around rules that are starting to crack. The setting is a near-future North America where religion has been pushed to the margins and the government treats belief as something to monitor, control, and keep contained.

That alone gives the series a different feel.

The two main characters are Justin March and Mae Koskinen. Justin is a sharp, disgraced investigator who knows a lot about religious movements and spends much of the series trying to decide whether cynicism is still useful when the impossible keeps happening. Mae is his assigned protector, a praetorian, one of the Republic's enhanced supersoldiers. She looks like the cool, controlled partner in a political thriller, but Mead gradually shows how much pressure and secrecy sit under that surface.

Their partnership drives the books. In Gameboard of the Gods, they are sent to investigate ritual murders and signs that the old gods may be returning. That case pulls them into conspiracies that stretch well beyond a single crime scene. In The Immortal Crown, the story widens through diplomacy, border politics, Arcadia's religious power structure, and the unsettling question of what happens when divine forces stop staying hidden. The plot mixes investigation, travel, political maneuvering, and romance without ever becoming just one thing.

This is probably Mead's most idea-heavy series. It cares about systems, not just characters. The books spend time on surveillance, social hierarchy, state power, gender rules, propaganda, and the ways belief can be used both to oppress and to resist. Even so, it never turns into a lecture. Justin and Mae keep the story grounded because their choices are personal, messy, and often at odds with what their government expects.

The tone is more adult and more deliberate than in her school-set fantasy series. There are action scenes and twists, but there is also a lot of tension built from conversation, secrecy, and the feeling that the whole political order may be standing on a fault line. Readers who enjoy dystopian futures, divine intrigue, and slow-burn partnerships usually click with it quickly.

As it stands, the published books set up a larger conflict between governments, believers, and returning gods. If you want Richelle Mead in a mode that blends speculative thriller, myth, and romance, Age Of X is the place to go. Start with Gameboard of the Gods and be ready for a world where faith is treated like a threat, right up until it becomes impossible to deny.