Burning Glass Books in Order

The Burning Glass series is Kathryn Purdie's court fantasy, and it leans hard into pressure, atmosphere, and emotion. The story begins with Sonya, a teenager born with a rare and frightening gift: she can feel what other people feel, physically and emotionally. That ability has already made her life dangerous before the palace ever gets involved. Once she is forced into imperial service, the books open into a world of cold grandeur, suspicion, and power games.

For Sonya, empathy is not gentle. It is overwhelming.

Her role as sovereign Auraseer is to protect the emperor by sensing threats before they strike. That means she lives inside a storm of other people's fear, rage, greed, and desire, never fully sure where their feelings stop and hers begin. Purdie gets a lot of mileage out of that tension. Sonya's magic is useful, but it also makes her vulnerable to manipulation, especially in a court where almost everyone wants something from her.

The setting matters here too. Riaznin has the feel of an imperial, Russian-inspired world, full of palaces, uniforms, ceremonies, harsh winters, and a ruling system that is already beginning to crack. That backdrop gives the books a steady sense of unease. Even the most intimate scenes carry political weight, because Sonya is always being watched, measured, or used as a tool by people with far more power than she has.

The two most important relationships in the series are with Emperor Valko and his younger brother Anton. Valko is volatile, commanding, and hard to read. Anton is more idealistic, but he is still part of the same brutal system. Sonya is pulled between them as politics sharpen into rebellion, which gives the trilogy its romantic and moral tension. The story is not just about choosing between two men. It is about deciding who deserves trust, what power does to people, and how much of yourself you can surrender before you disappear.

Nothing stays personal for long in Riaznin.

As Burning Glass moves into Crystal Blade and Frozen Reign, the scope widens from palace intrigue to revolution, unstable new rule, and the threat of civil war. Sonya's choices keep echoing outward. Old loyalties splinter, enemies return, and her powers become as much a burden as a weapon. If you like YA fantasy with a strong emotional lens, an icy empire under strain, and a heroine whose inner life matters as much as the politics around her, this series delivers a lot of atmosphere, tangled romance, and high-stakes fallout.