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Kate Elliott Books in Order

Browse Kate Elliott books in order, with short summaries, series guides, reading-order help, and easy ways to choose your best place to start.

Last updated: June 11, 2026

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39 books

The Labyrinth Gate

by Kate Elliott

1988

Newlyweds Chryse and Sanjay are jolted into Anglia, a parallel world shaped by sorcery and Victorian manners. To get home, they must search for treasure in the labyrinth city of Pariam before a ruthless princess beats them to it.

A Passage of Stars

by Kate Elliott

1990

When alien bounty hunters kidnap her mentor, Lily Ransome leaves her privileged life on Unruli and heads into space after him. The search pulls her into rebellion, new loyalties, and a much bigger conflict.

Revolution's Shore

by Kate Elliott

1990

Still caught in a growing rebellion, Lily Ransome joins forces with Hawk and a ragtag crew against a rising empire. Adventure, romance, and hard questions about freedom drive the fight into even deeper space.

The Price of Ransom

by Kate Elliott

1990

Abandoned after war and with few safe options left, Lily and her crew head toward the farthest reaches of human space. Their search for origins and refuge becomes one last test of loyalty and liberty.

Jaran

by Kate Elliott

1992

Tess Soerensen escapes her brother's shadow and lands on Rhui, where nomadic jaran clans stand at a turning point. Alien empire politics and her growing bond with Ilya make a personal journey suddenly matter on a galactic scale.

An Earthly Crown

by Kate Elliott

1993

As the jaran unite their homeland, Tess is caught between her brother Charles and her husband Ilya, each pushing a different future. Everyone wants her loyalty, but Tess has plans of her own.

His Conquering Sword

by Kate Elliott

1993

War spreads across Rhui as Ilya's campaign grows and Charles returns with his own ambitions. Tess refuses to be anyone's pawn, even while private loyalties and imperial politics collide around her.

The Law of Becoming

by Kate Elliott

1994

Tess, Charles, and Ilya are finally forced to face the full reach of the Chapalii Empire. Personal loyalties and revolutionary dreams collide as the long struggle over Rhui grows into a fight for the future of human worlds.

The Golden Key

by Kate Elliott

1996

Across generations, the Grijalva family shapes politics through a dangerous form of painting magic that can change the world it depicts. Court ambition, family rivalry, and art itself become weapons in this sprawling fantasy.

King's Dragon

by Kate Elliott

1997

Civil war, raids from the inhuman Eika, and eerie signs of returning ancient powers shake Wendar. Liath and Alain, two young outsiders with buried destinies, are swept into a struggle far larger than either expects.

Prince of Dogs

by Kate Elliott

1998

Believed dead, Sanglant endures captivity among the Eika while Liath tries to survive court intrigue and protect dangerous knowledge. Alain is drawn deeper into war as the conflict spreading across Wendar grows darker and stranger.

The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

1999

Liath and Sanglant seem to have found refuge at last, but politics, family claims, and forbidden magic quickly close in. As invasions and prophecy tighten around them, love and duty pull everyone toward hard choices.

Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

2000

Scattered across distant lands, Liath, Alain, Sanglant, and King Henry follow separate roads toward the same reckoning. War, exile, and ancient magic draw the long-foretold cataclysm ever closer.

The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

2003

Liath returns to a world sliding toward disaster and finds years have passed. As Sanglant marches for allies and Alain faces ruin, sorcerers and rulers alike race toward a cataclysm no one fully understands.

In the Ruins

by Kate Elliott

2005

After cataclysm reshapes land and sea, every faction scrambles for power while Liath and Sanglant fight to hold their family and realm together. Old enemies regroup, new alliances form, and the struggle for survival turns even more dangerous.

Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

2006

The final volume brings Liath, Sanglant, Alain, and their enemies into one last struggle for the crown and the fate of the world. Magic, war, old grudges, and shattered alliances all come due at once.

Spirit Gate

by Kate Elliott

2006

When exile, prophecy, and war converge in the Hundred, Mai and Captain Anji join forces with a reeve on a giant eagle and a young woman sworn to the Goddess. Something old and terrible is waking across the land.

Shadow Gate

by Kate Elliott

2008

As armies gather, Marit awakens from death changed and uncertain of what she has become. Meanwhile Joss, Mai, Anji, and their allies chase answers about the missing Guardians before the Hundred is swallowed by war.

Traitors' Gate

by Kate Elliott

2009

The long fight for the Hundred reaches its breaking point as corrupted Guardians, old betrayals, and rival armies close in. Victory will demand impossible choices from Joss, Mai, Anji, Marit, and the people around them.

Cold Magic

by Kate Elliott

2010

In an alternate nineteenth century where magic and industry uneasily coexist, Cat and Bee live sheltered lives until the Cold Mages come for Cat. Their flight opens into family secrets, spirits, and revolution.

Cold Fire

by Kate Elliott

2011

Cat and Bee are still on the run as cold mages, a relentless warlord, and the spirit world close around them. To save the people she loves, Cat must decide whom she can trust and what she will risk.

Cold Steel

by Kate Elliott

2013

Revolution burns across Europa while Cat races through danger on both sides of the spirit world. With enemies closing in and loved ones scattered, freedom starts to look inseparable from war.

The Very Best of Kate Elliott

by Kate Elliott

2014

This collection gathers twenty years of Kate Elliott's shorter fiction and essays. It offers a wide look at her range, from science fiction to fantasy, with many of the fierce, thoughtful heroines her readers love.

Black Wolves

by Kate Elliott

2015

Disgraced captain Kellas is pulled back toward court politics when the fragile peace of the Hundred begins to crack. Old loyalties, buried secrets, and competing heirs make every choice dangerous.

Court of Fives

by Kate Elliott

2015

Jessamy lives between worlds, noble on one side of her family and excluded on the other. Her secret love of the Fives, a fierce athletic competition, becomes tangled with royal intrigue and a fight to save her family.

Night Flower

by Kate Elliott

2015

Before the trilogy begins, Kiya and Esladas arrive in Saryenia young, ambitious, and far from home. Their first meeting sparks a relationship that has to push past language, class, and cultural barriers.

Poisoned Blade

by Kate Elliott

2016

Now a rising contender in the Fives, Jessamy needs prize money to keep her hidden family alive. Court politics and foreign danger pull her into a mission where every alliance could turn deadly.

Bright Thrones

by Kate Elliott

2017

When Jessamy's twin Bettany follows household servants being sent to the mines, she hopes to protect them from an even worse fate. A stiff foreign doctor may be her best chance of escape, if she can trust him.

Buried Heart

by Kate Elliott

2017

Jessamy stands at the center of a Commoner revolution just as foreign enemies threaten the kingdom. To protect her home and the people she loves, she has to decide who she is and what she will sacrifice.

Throne of Eldraine

by Kate Elliott

2019

When High King Kenrith disappears, twins Rowan and Will venture into Eldraine's dangerous Wilds to find him. Faerie tricks, missing memories, Oko's schemes, and Garruk's hunt turn the search into a race to save their realm.

Unconquerable Sun

by Kate Elliott

2020

Princess Sun comes of age in a republic full of ambitious houses, clever rivals, and people who would rather see her dead than reigning. To survive, she must rely on wit, loyal companions, and ruthless nerve.

The Tinder Box

by Kate Elliott

2021

This novella reimagines the old fairy tale as a sharper story about rebellion and power. At its center is a witch whose private choices help turn gathering unrest into open political danger.

Furious Heaven

by Kate Elliott

2022

After Chaonia drives back invasion at terrible cost, Princess Sun faces grief, assassination plots, and the burden of command. As enemies build new alliances, she must decide whether to follow old plans or make a legend of her own.

Servant Mage

by Kate Elliott

2022

Fellian, an indentured fire mage known as a Lamplighter, is freed by rebels who need her help on a dangerous mission. What starts as escape turns into conspiracy, royal politics, and a fight over who gets to wield power.

The Keeper's Six

by Kate Elliott

2023

When Esther's grown son is kidnapped, she reunites her old magical crew and heads back into the Beyond, the perilous space between worlds. Dragons, smugglers, and old secrets make the rescue far more personal than she expected.

The History of the World Begins in Ice

by Kate Elliott

2024

This collection returns to the world of the Spiritwalker trilogy with stories, essays, maps, and art. It expands Cat and Bee's setting from fresh angles while also working as a rich companion for series readers.

Barnacle

by Kate Elliott

2025

In a near-future world shaped by corporate control and scarcity, an older medic does what she can to keep her community alive behind the company wall. It is a tight, grounded story about endurance, care, and quiet resistance.

The Nameless Land

by Kate Elliott

2025

Thrown into a land they never expected to reach, the royal party must build fragile alliances just to survive. Elen faces old trauma, new betrayals, and hard truths about family, loyalty, and the world beyond the empire.

The Witch Roads

by Kate Elliott

2025

Deputy courier Elen is assigned to guide an arrogant prince and his entourage across dangerous country after a landslide cuts their route. Haunted spires, class tensions, and buried secrets make the journey steadily stranger and riskier.

Where should I start?

If you want big medieval epic fantasy: King's DragonPrince of DogsThe Burning Stone
If you want science fiction with culture clash and romance: JaranAn Earthly CrownHis Conquering SwordThe Law of Becoming
If you want alternate history and magic: Cold MagicCold FireCold Steel
If you want a fast YA entry point: Court of FivesPoisoned BladeBuried Heart
If you want newer space opera: Unconquerable SunFurious Heaven

Author bio

Kate Elliott is the pen name of Alis A. Rasmussen, a writer who has spent decades moving comfortably between epic fantasy, science fiction, young adult fantasy, and space opera. She was born in Iowa and raised in rural Oregon, and that mix of open landscape, imagination, and restless curiosity shows up all through her work. Her novels often begin with one person trying to survive their own corner of the world, then widen until politics, history, family, and revolution all come crashing in.

She started writing young.

As she has said in author bios over the years, she was making up stories by the time she was nine. Growing up in Oregon, she escaped into adventure fiction and built worlds of her own. That early habit never really stopped. Even now, there is something homemade and lived-in about her books, as if she has been walking around in these settings for a very long time before inviting readers in.

She later moved to Oakland to attend Mills College. While there, she got involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism and practiced medieval sword fighting, which helps explain why her fiction often feels grounded in the physical details of work, combat, clothing, travel, and rank. Her worlds may be huge, but they rarely float off into abstraction. People eat, argue, sweat, ride, bargain, and make bad decisions for very human reasons.

Her early novels were published under her own name, Alis A. Rasmussen, including The Labyrinth Gate and the Highroad books. In the early 1990s she began publishing as Kate Elliott, and that name became the one most fantasy and science fiction readers know. Jaran and its sequels helped establish one side of her range, science fiction with aliens, empire, romance, and sharp attention to culture. Those books are adventurous, but they are also interested in what happens when people step into a society that does not think like their own.

Then came the long fantasy sequences that made many readers stick with her for life. King's Dragon, the opening volume of Crown of Stars, was a Nebula finalist, and the collaborative novel The Golden Key was a World Fantasy finalist. Crown of Stars in particular shows what Elliott does so well: large casts, layered politics, religious conflict, messy history, and characters who have to grow up while the world is coming apart around them.

Big worlds are her comfort zone.

But she is not only an epic fantasy writer. Cold Magic and the Spiritwalker books turn to alternate history, revolution, and a wonderfully odd post Roman world full of cold mages, spirits, and uneasy modernity. Court of Fives brings that same interest in class, power, and identity into young adult fantasy. Unconquerable Sun shifts again, this time into space opera, using the life of Alexander the Great as fuel for a fast, political, character-driven story set among fleets and rival powers.

That flexibility is a big part of why readers return to her. Across genres, she tends to write capable young women, strained family bonds, institutions under pressure, and societies in the middle of change. She likes the point where personal loyalty runs into public duty. She also likes asking who gets power, who is shut out, and what it costs to build a better order after the old one breaks.

She lives in Hawaii, where she paddles outrigger canoes and spoils her schnauzer. That feels like a fitting final detail for a writer whose books are full of movement. Even after more than thirty years of publishing, she still seems most interested in the next road, the next argument, and the next world.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 39 Kate Elliott Books in Order (Complete List 2026)