Once Upon a Con Books in Order

The Once Upon a Con books are Ashley Poston's love letter to fandom, conventions, and the people who build whole parts of their lives around stories. These are YA companion novels set around the fictional Starfield franchise, with each book remixing a familiar fairy tale inside a world of cosplay, movie reboots, message boards, and con-floor chaos. The books share a setting and plenty of crossover characters, but each romance gets its own lead couple and emotional arc.

It starts with Geekerella, where Elle Wittimer has grown up loving Starfield because it connects her to her late father. When a cosplay contest offers the chance to attend ExcelsiCon and meet actor Darien Freeman, the newest face of the franchise, the story leans into Cinderella beats while also caring about grief, online friendship, and what fandom means when a story feels like home.

These books care a lot about fans.

In The Princess and the Fangirl, Poston shifts focus to Imogen Lovelace, an ordinary fan, and Jessica Stone, the actress who plays Princess Amara. A mix-up and a leaked script push them into a place-swapping mystery at another ExcelsiCon. That setup lets the series look at fandom from both sides of the barricade: the joy, the pressure, the entitlement, and the way public image can trap people just as easily as it can lift them.

Then Bookish and the Beast moves the action off the convention floor and into a small town, though Starfield still sits at the center. Rosie Thorne is carrying grief, money worries, and a deep love of rare books. Vance Reigns is a famous actor hiding from a scandal. Their story has Beauty and the Beast bones, but it is really about seeing the person under the costume, the tabloid version, or the fan fantasy.

Across all three books, the tone is warm, funny, and very online in the best way. Poston writes about cosplay, fanfiction, celebrity culture, and shipping with real affection, but she never forgets the awkward parts of growing up. There are crushes and meet-cutes, of course, but there is also loneliness, family baggage, identity questions, and the slow work of learning to be honest about what you want.

If you like companion series, reading these in order works best, because the shared Starfield world keeps getting richer as each new couple steps into the spotlight.