Keepers of the Hidden Ways Books in Order

Keepers of the Hidden Ways is set partly in small‑town North Dakota and partly in Tir Na Nog, a mythic parallel world where Norse gods still move the pieces. Rosenberg uses that split setting to let modern college students stumble into an older, stranger conflict that has been waiting for them since long before they picked up their first fencing foil.

The trilogy opens with The Fire Duke. Torrie Thorsen brings his friends Ian Silverstein and Maggie Christensen home to Hardwood, where his Norwegian‑American family keep old stories and older secrets. A raid by wolf‑like creatures shatters the quiet, kidnapping Torrie’s mother and Maggie and dragging them through a hidden tunnel. Torrie, his father Thorian, and their enigmatic “Uncle” Hosea follow, while Ian is led by a different route into Tir Na Nog and its tangled politics.

In that other world, duels are entertainment, gods wear mortal faces, and the Fire Duke rules a city built around the scattered jewels of a legendary necklace that can reshape reality. Hosea turns out to be one of the ancient powers behind that city, and his history with the Duke is anything but friendly. The quest to rescue the missing women becomes a larger struggle over who will control the jewels and what kind of universe they will be allowed to make.

The Silver Stone and The Crimson Sky push deeper into the consequences. Ian, now marked as a promised warrior, is sent on missions that are never quite what they seem, learning that divine patrons can be just as manipulative as any human ruler. Torrie, Maggie and their relatives shuttle between Hardwood and Tir Na Nog, hunting the Sons of Fenris, dealing with dwarves at the threshold between worlds, and trying to keep danger from spilling over into the cornfields and cul‑de‑sacs back home.

One of the pleasures of the series is how comfortably it moves between worlds. Sword duels and werewolf attacks sit alongside scenes of Lutheran potlucks, college gossip and generational clashes in a North Dakota farm kitchen. Rosenberg plays with myth—Odin, Freya and company all put in appearances—but rarely lets prophecy or destiny crowd out the stubborn, sometimes funny, choices of his human characters.

For readers, Keepers of the Hidden Ways offers a mix of portal fantasy, family saga and heist story, wrapped in a distinctly Midwest voice. This background section is here to frame the big picture so you can decide whether to follow the trilogy straight through or dip into it after you have already spent time in Guardians of the Flame or his other worlds.