Marie Lu Books in Order
Browse Marie Lu books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and easy where-to-start tips for Legend, Warcross, Skyhunter, and more.
Last updated: July 10, 2026
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Marie Lu books in publication order
21 books
Legend
by Marie Lu
2011
In a flooded future Los Angeles, prodigy June is ordered to hunt Day, the Republic's most wanted boy, after her brother's murder. Their chase uncovers a regime built on lies, plague, and brutal class divides.
Life Before Legend
by Marie Lu
2012
This short prequel offers two snapshots of June and Day at twelve, long before they become enemies and allies. It shows June's first days at Drake and Day's struggle to survive in the Lake sector.
Champion
by Marie Lu
2013
With war looming and a deadlier plague spreading, June and Day are pulled back into the Republic's fight for survival. Saving the country could demand the one sacrifice they can barely face.
Prodigy
by Marie Lu
2013
On the run in Vegas, June and Day join the Patriots, who promise help if they assassinate the Republic's new Elector. The plan gets messy when June starts to wonder whether Anden could change the country instead of ruin it.
The Young Elites
by Marie Lu
2014
After surviving the blood fever, Adelina is left scarred, feared, and harboring dangerous powers. Caught between the Dagger Society and the Inquisition Axis, she begins a dark path that looks nothing like heroism.
The Evertree
by Marie Lu
2015
Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan are nearing the end of their long quest across Erdas. To stop an ancient enemy from breaking free, they must reach a place forgotten by time and survive one last impossible fight.
The Rose Society
by Marie Lu
2015
Betrayed and burning for revenge, Adelina sets out to build her own band of Young Elites and destroy the Inquisition Axis. The more power she gathers, the harder it is to tell whether she is taking control or losing it.
The Midnight Star
by Marie Lu
2016
Adelina has won power, but the darkness feeding her abilities is beginning to spiral beyond her control. An uneasy alliance with old enemies may be the only way to save both her empire and the other Elites.
Warcross
by Marie Lu
2017
Teen hacker Emika Chen accidentally glitches herself into the world's biggest virtual game tournament, then gets recruited by creator Hideo Tanaka to spy from the inside. Tokyo, fame, and a deeper conspiracy make every move risky.
Batman: Nightwalker
by Marie Lu
2018
Before the cape and cowl, Bruce Wayne is an angry, impulsive eighteen-year-old pulled into a Gotham mystery. Community service at Arkham brings him close to Madeleine Wallace, a brilliant killer with ties to the Nightwalkers.
Wildcard
by Marie Lu
2018
After learning what Hideo's new NeuroLink tech could do to free will, Emika turns against him. Hunted through Tokyo, she teams up with old friends and dangerous new allies to stop a future she cannot accept.
Rebel
by Marie Lu
2019
Ten years after the original trilogy, Eden Wing is a gifted inventor trying to step out of Day's shadow in Ross City, Antarctica. When he gets tangled in the city's darker currents, old legends are forced back into action.
Skyhunter
by Marie Lu
2020
Talin fights as a Striker for Mara, the last nation still standing against the Federation and its monstrous Ghosts. A mysterious prisoner named Red may be a threat, a weapon, or the key to turning the war.
The Kingdom of Back
by Marie Lu
2020
Nannerl Mozart wants to be remembered as more than Wolfgang's sister, but her world has no place for a girl composer. When a stranger from a magical realm offers her a bargain, ambition turns dangerous.
Steelstriker
by Marie Lu
2021
Mara has fallen, and Talin is forced into the Federation's experiments as their newest Skyhunter. While Red struggles to find her again, the scattered Strikers race to fight back before the last hope of resistance is erased.
Stars and Smoke
by Marie Lu
2023
Global pop star Winter Young is recruited into a covert mission when a crime boss wants a private concert for his daughter. Paired with sharp-edged young spy Sydney Cossette, he has to act, flirt, and survive.
Icon and Inferno
by Marie Lu
2024
A year after their first mission, Winter and Sydney reunite for a rescue operation in Singapore that quickly turns personal. Sydney's ex, old sparks, and a dangerous new plot make partnership even harder the second time.
Red City
by Marie Lu
2025
In an alternate Los Angeles ruled by rival alchemical syndicates, Sam and Ari rise on opposite sides of a quiet war. Once childhood friends, they now face each other as ambition, loyalty, and the price of perfection turn deadly.
Mortal Things
by Marie Lu
2026
Rose Lin Fairchild never wanted the attention of gods, but Raven, the god of Death, makes her his Harbinger. To save her best friend, she must navigate divine politics, a murder, and a rival named Étienne.
Silver Dawn
by Marie Lu
2027
In this sequel to Red City, Sam and Ari are pulled toward a new battle over alchemy as Belle Epoque prepares to unveil a powerful new philosopher's stone. Old loyalties, new enemies, and unfinished feelings collide on a bigger stage.
The Legend Trilogy
by Marie Lu
Recommended by
1 person
Noah Kagan recommended this bookNoah Kagan
"If you like Hunger Games, you’ll like this. It’s a really fun three-book series." - Noah Kagan
Noah Kagan's recommendation of this book
Where to start with Marie Lu
If you want her signature dystopian story: Legend → Prodigy → Champion → Rebel
If you want dark fantasy with a villain at the center: The Young Elites → The Rose Society → The Midnight Star
If you want sci-fi, hacking, and virtual competition: Warcross → Wildcard
If you want spies, pop-star glamour, and romance: Stars and Smoke → Icon and Inferno
If you want her adult fantasy side: Red City → Silver Dawn
Marie Lu sub-series and character series
DC Icons (Marie Lu) books in order
Explore this seriesLegend books in order
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Explore this seriesStars and Smoke books in order
Explore this seriesThe New Alchemists books in order
Explore this seriesThe Young Elites books in order
Explore this seriesWarcross books in order
Explore this seriesMarie Lu collections, short stories, and related book types
Standalone Marie Lu books
Author bio
Marie Lu was born Xiwei Lu in Wuxi, China, in 1984. She spent part of her early childhood in Beijing, then moved to the United States with her family when she was five. She grew up between Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Houston, and one of her earliest ways of learning English was by writing little stories and fake wanted ads for imaginary criminals.
Writing started as language practice.
That habit stayed with her. As a teenager, she realized that books on shelves were made by real people with real jobs, and writing stopped feeling like a private hobby and started looking like something she might actually do. At the University of Southern California, she studied political science and biology, fields that make a lot of sense once you notice how often her fiction cares about power, systems, science, and the rules people live under.
Before novels became her full-time work, Lu spent years in the video game industry. She interned, then worked at Disney Interactive Studios as an artist. That background shows up all over her books. The scenes are easy to picture, the worlds are built with a strong visual sense, and the pacing tends to move with the clean momentum of a game level or cinematic sequence.
Her breakout novel was Legend, the start of the June and Day books. Readers liked the speed, the dual perspective, and the way a simple hunt story opens into a bigger argument about class, propaganda, and the cost of loyalty. She kept stretching from there. The Young Elites turns toward darker fantasy and gives readers a heroine, or maybe antihero, who grows more dangerous as the story goes on. Warcross brings in hacking, virtual reality, and celebrity spectacle, while Skyhunter returns to war, resistance, and survival under occupation.
She is also a writer who clearly enjoys changing lanes. The Kingdom of Back reimagines the life of Mozart's sister, Nannerl, through a mix of history and fantasy. Stars and Smoke swings toward spies, pop stardom, and banter. In 2025, she published Red City, her first adult novel, and carried many of her favorite ideas, rivalry, ambition, desire, and power, into a darker urban fantasy world built around alchemy and crime syndicates.
She likes hard choices.
Across Lu's books, certain patterns keep returning. She is drawn to gifted young people under pressure, especially characters who are brilliant, isolated, underestimated, or all three at once. Her stories circle around loyalty, surveillance, rebellion, ambition, found family, and the price of becoming exceptional. Even when the setting changes, from flooded dystopias to fantasy courts and neon game worlds, there is usually someone trying to figure out whether they can stay themselves inside a system built to use them.
That mix of big stakes and personal feeling is a lot of why readers stay with her. The romances matter, but so do siblings, teammates, and uneasy alliances. She can write a sharp action scene, but she is just as interested in what comes after, the doubt, the guilt, the compromise, and the moment a character realizes there is no clean way out.
Lu lives in Los Angeles with her family and writes full time. She has said that when she is not working, she likes reading, drawing, and playing games, which fits the range of her fiction pretty well. Whether she is writing YA dystopia, fantasy, science fiction, or adult fantasy, she keeps coming back to the same question: what does it cost to survive a world that wants to define you first?
Edited by
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