Maggie Furey Books in Order

If you want the main epic fantasy saga: Aurian → Harp of Winds → The Sword of Flame → Dhiammara
If you want the backstory first: Heritage of the Xandim → Exodus of the Xandim → Aurian
If you want a separate fantasy world: The Heart of Myrial → Spirit of the Stone → The Eye Of Eternity / Echo of Eternity
If you want a short science fiction detour: Sorceress → Spindrift → The Web: 2028

Maggie Furey was born in Northumberland and grew up in the North East of England. She became known for big, adventurous fantasy novels packed with magic, danger, and heroines who refuse to stay in the role other people choose for them.

That stubborn streak runs through her books.

Before she published fiction, Furey spent years doing work that kept bringing her back to reading. She qualified as a teacher, reviewed books on BBC Radio Newcastle, advised the Durham Reading Resources Centre, and helped organize children's book fairs. Long before she was in print, books were already at the center of her working life.

She kept circling back to them.

She also underwent major heart surgery and later recovered, a fact that sits quietly in the background of her life story without defining it.

Furey later said she had always expected to write one day. At school, English was her best subject, and a teacher told her she would become a writer. The real turning point came when she lost her job while living in the North of England. Ideas had been piling up for years, and she decided the moment had finally arrived to stop waiting and write the novel she had in mind.

That book was Aurian. Furey said it took her about three years to get it right because she wanted her first novel to be a proper calling card. She had grown up loving fantasy, but she was frustrated by how often women were pushed to the edge of the story. In one interview, she said she used to imagine rewriting Tolkien with a female wizard at the center. You can see that impulse clearly in Aurian, a powerful young mage who is also angry, impulsive, capable, and very hard to control.

Aurian opened the Artefacts of Power saga, followed by Harp of Winds, The Sword of Flame, and Dhiammara. Readers who click with those books usually like the mix of quest fantasy, emotional intensity, sword fights, magical relics, and a heroine who has to battle both enemies and systems built to contain her. Furey liked large casts, fast movement, and high stakes, but she also cared about relationships, especially loyalty, love, and the cost of power.

She did not stay in one world. With The Heart of Myrial, Spirit of the Stone, and The Eye of Eternity, she built the Shadowleague books around the failing Curtain Walls of Myrial, a setup that let her combine epic fantasy with a rolling world-disaster story. Later, in Heritage of the Xandim and Exodus of the Xandim, she went back into the deep past of the Aurian universe to tell how the Xandim, a cursed shapeshifting people, fought for freedom.

She could also shift gears when she wanted to. Her shorter The Web books, Sorceress and Spindrift, moved into young adult science fiction and virtual reality, but they kept her taste for danger, momentum, and identity under pressure.

In later life Furey lived in County Wicklow, Ireland, with her husband Eric, and she was open about being very fond of cats. She died there in 2016. Her novels still have an old-school fantasy energy that makes sense the minute you open them: big feelings, big journeys, and just enough wildness to keep the whole thing moving.