JD Horn Books in Order

J.D. Horn was raised in rural Tennessee, and the South has stayed close to his work even as his life has taken him elsewhere. His novels return to humid cities, small towns, old grudges, family stories, and the uneasy feeling that the past may not be finished with anyone yet.

Before he published fiction, Horn studied French and Russian literature, earned an MBA in international business, and worked as a financial analyst. It was a practical career, but storytelling was always the bigger pull. He has said that Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City gave him the push to try writing himself, especially its plainspoken way of handling complicated and sometimes painful lives.

He kept at it for a long time.

Horn completed an unpublished novel roughly two decades before The Line arrived in 2014. Around two years before that first publication, he left finance to focus on becoming a novelist. The move brought him to 47North, which published The Line, his first book to reach readers.

The Line introduced Mercy Taylor, a member of a powerful Savannah witch family who believes she has no magic at all. A murder, a fragile supernatural barrier, and the secrets held by the people closest to Mercy turn that assumption upside down. The book became the opening volume of the Witching Savannah series, followed by The Source and The Void.

Then came Jilo, a prequel centered on one of the series' most memorable figures, Mother Jilo Wills. Rather than simply filling in background, it follows her life across several decades and gives the Savannah books a wider view of family, power, and survival. Horn has described Jilo as a character who took over the story while he was writing The Line, which is often how the best fictional troublemakers behave.

His standalone novel Shivaree heads into darker territory. Set in Mississippi after the Korean War, it follows an army nurse who arrives in her fiancé's hometown and finds a place packed with racism, violence, old secrets, and a supernatural reckoning. It has the same interest in Southern history and buried damage, but in a more openly Gothic and unsettling form.

Place matters in Horn's fiction.

The Witches of New Orleans trilogy, beginning with The King of Bones and Ashes, moves to a city where magic is fading and old witch families are fighting over what remains. The Book of the Unwinding and The Final Days of Magic build that story through Alice Marin, Evangeline Caissy, Nathalie Boudreau, and a large web of relatives, rivals, and dangerous allies. Horn's books often put women at the center of the action, then let family loyalty, private grief, romance, and ambition complicate every choice.

His work has been translated into several languages. Horn is married to Rich Weissman, and they divide their time among homes in Palm Springs, San Francisco, and Central Oregon. Wherever he is working, the fictional South still seems to have a strong claim on his imagination.