Livia Blackburne Books in Order

Livia Blackburne was born in Taiwan and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spent her twenties in Boston, a stretch of life that took her deep into science before she found her way back to fiction.

At Harvard, Blackburne earned an A.B. in biochemical sciences. She then completed a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience at MIT, researching how people read. It might sound like a long way from castles, plagues, and princesses, but she was already carrying a fantasy novel around in her head.

Her first attempt began in high school, when writing a novel offered a way out of a mandatory camping requirement.

She drafted about sixty pages, then set the project aside for years. During graduate school, she returned to it as a break from research, eventually rebuilding the story around Kyra, the young thief who would become the lead of Midnight Thief.

The road from science to publishing was gradual. Blackburne wrote in her spare time, joined a critique group, revised her manuscript after agent feedback, and sold Midnight Thief as her debut. The book introduced a dangerous city, an assassin's guild, a palace knight, and a heroine who has to learn what her strange powers mean.

That world continued in Daughter of Dusk, while the prequel novella Poison Dance stepped back to explore James, the guarded assassin at the center of the guild. These books are a good fit for readers who enjoy street-level fantasy, uneasy alliances, and characters whose choices rarely come with an easy answer.

Blackburne later created another fantasy duology, beginning with Rosemarked. It pairs a healer facing a deadly plague with a soldier shaped by war, then sends them into the middle of an empire's conflict. The series makes room for romance and adventure, but it also keeps asking what people owe their communities when every option carries a cost.

Her work has expanded beyond YA fantasy. Feather and Flame imagines Mulan facing a new challenge as the emperor's chosen heir, while Clementine and Danny Save the World (And Each Other) follows two online rivals working to protect their Chinatown community. In the picture book I Dream of Popo, a child moves from Taiwan to the United States and stays connected to her grandmother across an ocean.

The range makes sense. Blackburne writes for young readers in several forms, from short fantasy to contemporary romance to family stories rooted in memory and migration.

She is Chinese American and lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter. These days, writing is part of a busy family life, but the old habit is still there: following a question, a character, or a small emotional moment until it turns into a story.