Island Of The Mighty Books in Order

The Island Of The Mighty books are a little different from Catherine Fisher’s longer fantasy series. Rather than building one big continuing plot, they draw on older Welsh stories and retell them for younger readers in a brisk, lively way. The feeling is closer to sitting down with a storyteller than entering a giant multi-book epic.

That older material matters. Fisher has spent much of her career returning to Welsh myth, Arthurian legend, and the strange half-glimpsed figures who survive in medieval tale and folklore. This series gives her a compact space to do that work clearly and accessibly. The stories are rooted in a Britain where kings, enchanters, talking animals, prophecies, and monsters all belong in the same landscape.

In The Cat with Iron Claws, that landscape is full of movement and trouble.

The young hero Coll wants to learn a great enchantment, but first he is swept into a pursuit involving Henwen, the mysterious white sow whose journey brings both blessings and danger. From there the story opens into the kind of adventure old legends are good at, quick turns, magical tests, strange creatures, and the feeling that even a seemingly small errand may touch the fate of a whole kingdom. The fearsome cat of the title gives the tale its bite, but the deeper appeal is the sense that anything might happen next.

What makes these books work is Fisher’s balance of simplicity and atmosphere. She does not bury the reader in explanation. She lets the old story shapes do their job, quest, challenge, escape, revelation, and keeps the telling clear. At the same time, she never flattens the material into something too cute. The magic here can be funny, but it can also be wild, risky, and a little unsettling.

So this is a good series for readers who want a first step into Welsh legendary material, or for anyone who likes short fantasy that still feels old and resonant. The pleasures are straightforward, bold characters, strong storytelling, memorable creatures, and a setting where the everyday world has not yet learned to pretend the marvelous is impossible. Even in its shorter form, it feels very much like Catherine Fisher, curious about ancient stories and very aware that they still have claws.