Alison Goodman Books in Order

For dragons, court politics, and identity drama: Eon → Eona
For Regency fantasy and demon hunting: The Dark Days Club → The Dark Days Pact → The Dark Days Deceit
For witty historical mysteries: The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies → The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin
For a one-off sci-fi adventure: Singing the Dogstar Blues

Alison Goodman was born in Melbourne, Australia, and after some wandering returned to her hometown, the city she still calls home. Books were part of the atmosphere early. She has said her mother read to her when she was little, and that shared love of reading never really left.

She started writing almost as soon as she learned to read. In grade 5 she wrote a long rhyming poem about wild horses, got a gold star from her teacher, and saw it printed in the school magazine. It was a small moment, but it gave her the idea that writing might be more than a daydream.

That early push stayed with her. Goodman went on to earn a master's degree in creative writing from RMIT University, later taught creative writing at university level, and eventually completed a PhD at the University of Queensland, where her work focused on Regency history and fiction. Research clearly matters to her, but so does pace.

Singing the Dogstar Blues announced that mix right away. It throws together time travel, music, aliens, and teenage chaos, and somehow keeps the whole thing funny, sharp, and warm. The book won an Aurealis Award for best young adult novel and still feels like a good example of her willingness to bend genre instead of sitting neatly inside one box.

Then came a jump in tone.

Killing the Rabbit, later republished as A New Kind of Death, is a much darker adult thriller about an ambitious filmmaker, disappearing women, and a conspiracy that keeps turning uglier. Goodman has never seemed especially interested in staying in one lane if a story pulls her somewhere else.

A lot of readers first met her through Eon and Eona. Those books bring together dragons, imperial politics, swordplay, and questions of identity in a richly built world. They also show one of Goodman's recurring interests: characters trying to hold on to themselves inside rigid systems that want to define them first.

That thread runs through her Regency books too. In The Dark Days Club, The Dark Days Pact, and The Dark Days Deceit, a young noblewoman discovers that polished society sits on top of something monstrous. Later, in The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies and The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin, Goodman shifts from dark fantasy to historical mystery and gives the center of the story to middle-aged twin sisters who use the fact that society ignores them to fight back.

She likes pressure-cooker worlds.

Across the books, you can see the patterns. Secret histories. Women pushing against narrow roles. Power that always comes with a cost. Settings that feel lived in, whether that means a future Melbourne, an imperial court shaped by dragon lore, or Regency streets full of rules, gossip, and danger. These days she lives in Melbourne and can, with some satisfaction, call herself Dr Al. She has spoken about loving contra dancing, keeping a wardrobe of historically accurate Regency clothes, and traveling a long way for a good high tea or a really good scone.