Alex Bledsoe Books in Order
Explore Alex Bledsoe books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where-to-start tips for Tufa, Eddie LaCrosse, vampire novels, and more.
Last updated: July 8, 2026
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Publication Order
21 books
The Sword-Edged Blonde
by Alex Bledsoe
2007
A missing princess should be routine work for sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse. Instead, the case leads to a murdered royal heir, a queen under suspicion, and the personal past Eddie thought he had buried.
Blood Groove
by Alex Bledsoe
2009
Staked in Wales in 1915, Baron Rudolfo Zginski wakes up in 1975 Memphis to find a world he barely understands. To survive, he joins forces with younger vampires and hunts a new drug built to kill his kind.
Burn Me Deadly
by Alex Bledsoe
2009
After trying to help a terrified woman, Eddie is left for dead beside her mutilated body. His hunt for the killers draws him into crime, court scandal, a dragon cult, and the kind of trouble that never stays buried.
The Girls with Games of Blood
by Alex Bledsoe
2010
Rudolfo Zginski's 1975 Memphis troubles deepen when he becomes entangled with the deadly Bolade sisters. Fast cars, old songs, and a growing web of desire and vengeance turn this vampire tale sharp and strange.
Dark Jenny
by Alex Bledsoe
2011
A coffin from Eddie's past pulls him into an island kingdom where a queen stands accused of murder and adultery. To stop a civil war, he has to cut through court politics, old grief, and a very dangerous legend.
The Hum and the Shiver
by Alex Bledsoe
2011
Bronwyn Hyatt returns from Iraq wounded in body and spirit, only to find that home offers no easy peace. In Cloud County, Tufa music, family omens, and a restless haint force her back into an older song.
To the Batpole
by Alex Bledsoe
2012
This short parody imagines Alfred trying to deal with young Bruce Wayne at an awkward turning point in his life. It is affectionate, deadpan Batman comedy with a very silly premise and a straight face.
Wake of the Bloody Angel
by Alex Bledsoe
2012
When Angelina asks Eddie to learn what became of the pirate who once stole her heart, he cannot refuse. The trail leads to sea legends, hidden treasure, and the possibility that Black Edward Tew never truly vanished.
Next-to-Last of the Tiger Men and Mack's Last Rhino
by Alex Bledsoe
2013
This omnibus pairs two adventure novellas about hunters Linda Fontana and T.S. Bunch. One heads into Brazil after jaguars and a vanished friend, the other into Africa for a deadly rhino hunt and a hard reckoning.
Shall We Gather
by Alex Bledsoe
2013
This brief Tufa story turns a small meeting at the edge of two worlds into something uncanny. One question, asked at the right moment, is enough to show how quietly magic can slip into ordinary life.
Sword Sisters
by Alex Bledsoe
2013
Aella, the half-demon daughter of a witch, wants nothing to do with destiny or heroism. But friendship, danger, and a world that keeps calling her back push her toward the making of the Red Reaper.
The Firefly Witch Story Collection
by Alex Bledsoe
2013
These ten linked stories follow blind witch Tanna Tully and reporter Ry Tully through hauntings, missing children, cursed objects, and stranger things. The mood shifts from quirky to dark, but the cases stay personal and weird.
Wisp of a Thing
by Alex Bledsoe
2013
Grieving musician Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County hoping a song might mend his heart. Instead he finds missing people, a feral girl in the woods, and a Tufa mystery tied to power, curses, and the changing season.
He Drank, and Saw the Spider
by Alex Bledsoe
2014
Sixteen years after a dying stranger left him with a baby girl to protect, Eddie LaCrosse goes looking for the child's fate. He finds a teenage girl at the center of feuding kings, sorcery, and buried secrets.
Long Black Curl
by Alex Bledsoe
2015
Exiled lovers Bo-Kate Wisby and Jefferson Powell are drawn back into Tufa life after decades of separation and curse. With Cloud County at risk, old loyalties, old music, and old wounds all come roaring back.
The Two Weddings of Bronwyn Hyatt
by Alex Bledsoe
2015
A celebration in Tufa country comes with strings attached in this short tale centered on Bronwyn Hyatt. What looks like a gift or a kindness carries older obligations, and the cost only becomes clear when it is too late.
Chapel of Ease
by Alex Bledsoe
2016
Young actor Matt Johansson joins an off-Broadway musical written by a Tufa composer, then watches the show's buried secret turn deadly. After the writer dies, Matt heads to Needsville to learn what his play left out.
The Key to the Coward's Spell
by Alex Bledsoe
2016
While searching for a missing child with one bad arm, Eddie LaCrosse stumbles onto a smuggling ring said to be protected by magic. The job pulls in old friends, new danger, and a case that refuses to stay small.
Gather Her Round
by Alex Bledsoe
2017
Cloud County is already full of old grudges and stranger music when something murderous starts moving through the woods. As fear spreads, the Tufa must face both a lurking monster and the human cruelty that can be just as deadly.
The Fairies of Sadieville
by Alex Bledsoe
2018
In the final Tufa novel, a story from 1920s Appalachia opens a window into Cloud County's deeper past. A filmmaker, a coal town, and a mysterious mountain girl lead back to the old secrets the Tufa have been carrying all along.
Dandelion
by Alex Bledsoe
2022
Former marine and demon fighter Deacon Elder arrives in Somerton, Tennessee, to finish a failed exorcism. What he finds is a town already in the grip of a darker evil, one hiding behind revival tents, small-town cruelty, and a giant big-box store.
Where should I start?
If you want fantasy detective stories: The Sword-Edged Blonde → Burn Me Deadly → Dark Jenny
If you want Appalachian folklore and music: The Hum and the Shiver → Wisp of a Thing → Long Black Curl
If you want Southern vampire noir: Blood Groove → The Girls with Games of Blood
If you want a darker standalone: Dandelion
Author bio
Alex Bledsoe was born in Tennessee in 1963 and grew up in west Tennessee, the part of the state that keeps showing up in his fiction. Even when he writes fantasy, horror, or vampire novels, the ground under the story tends to feel Southern: small towns, old songs, dry humor, family history, and the sense that place is never just scenery. That is one of the first things many readers notice about his work.
Before the novels, he did a lot of other jobs. In his author bios he has described himself as a reporter, editor, photographer, and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. It is a very Bledsoe list. Those jobs seem to have given him an eye for odd details and a feel for working people, which helps explain why even his strangest books are full of practical worries, sharp talk, and people who feel like they had lives before page one.
He did not come to fiction overnight.
Bledsoe has said the seed of Eddie LaCrosse started when he was still in high school. He created the character at seventeen, then kept turning the idea over for years before The Sword-Edged Blonde finally appeared in 2007. That long runway makes sense once you meet Eddie, a sword-for-hire who talks and thinks like a hard-boiled private eye. In later books like Burn Me Deadly, Dark Jenny, and Wake of the Bloody Angel, Bledsoe keeps mixing murder mysteries, fantasy kingdoms, and street-level wit.
He was never interested in staying in one lane. Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood move into 1970s Memphis, where an old-world vampire named Rudolfo Zginski wakes up in a city of heat, music, cars, and trouble. Years later, Dandelion showed another side of his range, a darker Southern horror novel about demons, cruelty, and a town already halfway broken before the supernatural even starts to lean in. Across all of it, noir pressure never goes very far away.
Then he found the books many readers know best.
The Tufa novels, starting with The Hum and the Shiver, are probably the clearest example of what makes Bledsoe stand out. Set in the mountains of East Tennessee, they follow a secretive people whose music carries power, memory, and traces of an older world. Wisp of a Thing, Long Black Curl, and Chapel of Ease build that setting outward without losing the human scale. These are books about folklore, yes, but also grief, family, gossip, class, war, love, and what it costs to belong to a community that keeps its own rules.
He also wrote the Firefly Witch stories, centered on Tanna Tully, a blind Wiccan priestess who can see when fireflies are near. That premise tells you a lot about his taste. Bledsoe likes the everyday world just fine, but he likes it better when something weird slips in at the edges. He has published more than fifty short stories, and in 2009 he donated his archive to Northern Illinois University.
Bledsoe has lived in Wisconsin for years, and his author notes often mention writing before six in the morning. That image fits the work. His books feel made by someone who likes monsters, jokes, old music, and stubborn people in equal measure, and who knows that a story gets stronger when the magic stays tied to real places and real lives.
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