RA MacAvoy Books in Order
Explore R. A. MacAvoy books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, reading paths, and helpful background for choosing where to begin.
Last updated: July 14, 2026
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RA MacAvoy books in publication order
15 books
Tea with the Black Dragon
by RA MacAvoy
1983
When musician Martha Macnamara arrives in San Francisco to find her missing daughter, she joins forces with Mayland Long, a man who may be a dragon in human form. Their search leads into computer crime, danger, and an unexpected bond.
Damiano
by RA MacAvoy
1984
In an alternate Renaissance Italy where magic is real, young alchemist Damiano Delstrego leaves home to save his city from war. Guided by the Archangel Raphael and his music, he must face a dark inheritance he never wanted.
Damiano's Lute
by RA MacAvoy
1984
Damiano tries to abandon the dark magic tied to his family, but the past follows him into plague-ridden France. With Raphael's guidance and his lute, he must confront a force determined to claim him.
Raphael
by RA MacAvoy
1984
The Archangel Raphael is stripped of his powers and sold into slavery, leaving him frighteningly human. Damiano's friends set out to find him, while an old battle with Lucifer reaches a dangerous turning point.
The Book of Kells
by RA MacAvoy
1985
Canadian artist John Thornburn opens an unexpected path to tenth-century Ireland while tracing an old Gaelic design. With historian Derval O'Keane, he enters a world shaped by Viking raids, art, faith, and a young girl's desperate need for help.
Twisting the Rope
by RA MacAvoy
1986
Martha Macnamara and Mayland Long are touring with a Celtic music group when a band member is found dead. A murder, a kidnapped child, and a dangerous psychic force leave them racing to uncover what is really happening.
The Grey Horse
by RA MacAvoy
1987
In nineteenth-century Connemara, a magical grey stallion enters the life of horse trainer Anrai O'Reachtaire. The horse is Ruairi, a shape-shifting púca pursuing love as village tensions and Irish resistance to English rule deepen.
The Third Eagle
by RA MacAvoy
1989
Wanbli, a young warrior from a remote colony world, leaves home dreaming of becoming a shimmer star. His travels among distant peoples lead instead to a mission that could decide the future of his ship and his planet.
Lens of the World
by RA MacAvoy
1990
Outcast orphan Nazhuret is taken in by the mysterious Powl, who teaches him lens making, languages, philosophy, and combat. Sent into the wider world, Nazhuret discovers his past may matter to the fate of a kingdom.
King of the Dead
by RA MacAvoy
1991
Nazhuret wants a quiet life with Arlin, but assassins and a disputed inheritance force them into danger. Sent as unofficial ambassadors to Rezhmia, they find themselves caught between political tensions and the threat of war.
The Belly of the Wolf
by RA MacAvoy
1993
Living in exile with his daughter, Nazhuret learns that his old friend, King Rudof, may have been murdered. He returns to a Velonya sliding toward civil war, where ghosts, wolves, and rival factions complicate every choice.
In Between
by RA MacAvoy
2009
Chinese American painter and martial artist Ewen Young is drawn into danger when criminals target his uncle. After a brush with death, Ewen discovers that his unusual inner refuge may be a real place between life and death.
Death and Resurrection
by RA MacAvoy
2011
Artist and reluctant kung fu teacher Ewen Young can enter the realm between death and rebirth. As threats close in on his family, he joins veterinarian Susan Sundown and her remarkable cadaver dog to face human and supernatural evil.
Albatross
by RA MacAvoy
2017
Physicist Rob MacAulay is framed as a terrorist in a brittle near-future Europe. Forced to flee, he becomes the focus of a police hunt led in part by technical consultant Thomas Heddiman, who begins to doubt the case against him.
Shimmer
by RA MacAvoy
2018
Cleared of terrorism charges, physicist Rob MacAulay tries to build a life in America while teaching and researching at Harvard. But his unusual power, and the intense attention surrounding him, keeps pulling his loved ones into unpredictable danger.
Where to start with RA MacAvoy
For a modern fantasy mystery: Tea with the Black Dragon → Twisting the Rope
For Renaissance magic and music: Damiano → Damiano's Lute → Raphael
For a coming-of-age fantasy epic: Lens of the World → King of the Dead → The Belly of the Wolf
For near-future science fiction: Albatross → Shimmer
RA MacAvoy sub-series and character series
Albatross books in order
Explore this seriesBlack Dragon books in order
Explore this seriesDamiano books in order
Explore this seriesLens of the World books in order
Explore this seriesStandalone RA MacAvoy books
Author bio
R. A. MacAvoy was born Roberta Ann MacAvoy in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1949. She studied at Case Western Reserve University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1971, before taking a less predictable route into fiction.
Before she became a full-time writer, MacAvoy worked in college financial aid and then as a computer programmer at SRI International. That mix of practical work, technical thinking, and curiosity about people later found its way into stories that can move comfortably between magic, mystery, history, music, and science.
She turned to writing full time in 1982.
Her first novel, Tea with the Black Dragon, arrived in 1983. It introduces Martha Macnamara, a middle-aged musician searching for her missing daughter, and Mayland Long, a mysterious man who may be far more than human. The book blends a missing-person case, a quiet romance, computer culture, and Chinese dragon lore without making any one element feel out of place.
It also gave MacAvoy a quick start in the field. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1984, and Tea with the Black Dragon was recognized by several major genre awards. Readers who pick it up now often find that its real strength is its pair of grown-up leads, who meet danger with patience, humor, and a pot of tea.
MacAvoy's books tend to follow people who would rather live ordinary lives but are pulled toward difficult responsibilities. In the Damiano novels, a young Renaissance alchemist and musician faces war, plague, angels, and dark magic. The Book of Kells sends a modern artist into tenth-century Ireland. The Grey Horse brings a shape-shifting horse fairy into an Irish village under political strain.
Then there is Lens of the World, the opening of a fantasy trilogy about Nazhuret, an outcast trained as a lens grinder, thinker, and fighter. The series has travel, court politics, and magic, but it stays close to Nazhuret's attempt to understand who he is and how he should use the skills he has been given.
She also wrote science fiction. The Third Eagle follows a young warrior through a far-flung human future, while the later Albatross books, written with Nancy Palmer, place a physicist in a near-future political crisis. Across these very different settings, MacAvoy returns to music, martial arts, cultural memory, spiritual questions, and the tricky work of caring for other people.
Her writing life was interrupted after she developed dystonia in the 1990s, a painful neurological movement disorder. Treatment eventually made it possible for her to return to writing, and she later published In Between and the expanded novel Death and Resurrection, about artist and martial artist Ewen Young and his unsettling link to the world of the dead.
MacAvoy has also raised Connemara ponies, practiced martial arts, dived in Pacific waters, woven textiles, and grown orchids. Those interests do not sit outside the fiction. They help explain why her novels pay close attention to bodies, animals, craft, discipline, and the odd details that make an invented world feel lived in.
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