Loki Books in Order

The Loki books are Joanne M Harris at her most sly, funny, and sharp-edged. These are not solemn retellings of Norse myth from a respectful distance. They are told by Loki himself, which means the voice is fast, mocking, self-justifying, and impossible to trust completely. That is the whole pleasure.

If Runemarks shows this mythic world from the ground, the Loki books hand the story to the loudest person in the room.

The Gospel of Loki begins with Odin recruiting Loki out of Chaos and bringing him into Asgard. From there, Harris follows the old myths through Loki's version of events: the bargains, the humiliations, the jokes that go too far, the rivalries, the uneasy friendships, and the long slide toward Ragnarok. Because Loki is both participant and commentator, the gods stop feeling like statues and start feeling like a court full of touchy, vain, frightened immortals trying to keep their power.

That point of view matters. Loki is the outsider in Asgard, useful when the gods need a fixer, a thief, or a scapegoat, but never fully welcomed. Harris leans into that tension. These books are about belonging, status, class, performance, and the way a society can depend on someone it also despises. Loki is funny because he is always watching the room. He is dangerous for exactly the same reason.

Then The Testament of Loki takes a turn that keeps the series fresh. After Ragnarok, Loki finds himself in the modern world inside a human host, a troubled teenage girl called Jumps. That lets Harris bring myth into very ordinary pressures: school, family control, self-image, sexuality, friendship, and the strange indignities of having a body that will not behave as a god expects. The stakes are still cosmic, but the texture is much closer to the skin.

The tone stays nimble. The books are witty, but never lightweight. Beneath the jokes there is real sadness, especially around shame, exile, and the question of whether someone can ever change the part they have been assigned in a story.

You can read this pair on its own, but it also links to the wider Rune world of Runemarks and Runelight. If you want the simplest route, read The Gospel of Loki first, then The Testament of Loki. If you like tricksters, unreliable narrators, and myths retold with a bit of bite, this is a very good place to start.