MarcyKate Connolly Books in Order

MarcyKate Connolly writes middle grade and young adult stories filled with magic, strange mysteries, complicated loyalties, and kids who have to make brave choices before they feel ready. She lives in New England with her family and a pack of short-nosed dogs, and also works in nonprofit marketing.

Her first creative life was in music. Connolly was classically trained as a singer and wrote music, then worked in the arts world with symphonies, theaters, and opera companies. She graduated from Hampshire College, where her senior thesis was an opera sequel to Hamlet. Plotting that opera helped her realize how much she enjoyed building stories and putting characters in difficult situations.

The switch to novels began on a commute.

While working and taking master's classes in Boston, Connolly was riding the subway home when a glimpse into old, unused tunnels sparked an idea about fairies living underground. That first novel was never published, but it got her writing book after book. She had written poetry and short stories since childhood, but this was the moment writing fiction became a regular part of her life.

She has described herself as a serious planner, someone who likes an outline and enjoys moving around a story while drafting. That love of structure shows up in her books, where secret histories, unusual magic, and shifting alliances tend to matter as much as a chase scene. Her settings often have rules that look simple at first, then prove far more dangerous.

Her debut, Monstrous, arrived in 2015. It follows Kymera, a girl made with wings, bolts, and a spiked tail, who enters the cursed city of Bryre at night to search for missing girls. Its companion, Ravenous, returns to Bryre for a fairy-tale-flavored rescue story. Both books draw on the unease of old tales without retelling one familiar story beat for beat.

Then came shadows.

In Shadow Weaver and Comet Rising, a girl named Emmeline can control shadows, including her own outspoken shadow, Dar. The companion Hollow Dolls books stay in that fantasy world but follow Simone, a mind reader trying to uncover her past while confronting a frightening kind of body magic. Connolly's young characters are often isolated at the beginning, then find that friendship can be both a risk and a lifeline.

She also writes bigger, more outward-looking adventures. The Star Shepherd, created with Dan Haring, sends a boy, his friend, and his dog after falling stars. Twin Daggers and Heartless Heirs, her first young adult duology, move into a world split between magical people and machine-minded Technocrats. Later books such as A Breath of Mischief and the mystery The Thirteenth Circle, co-written with Kathryn Holmes, keep mixing peril with close friendships and curious young investigators.

Connolly still makes room for coffee, books, and dogs alongside writing. She has said she can be tempted out of her writing space by caffeine and something new to read, which sounds like a pretty workable system for someone who enjoys dreaming up trouble for fictional people.