Relics Books in Order

The Relics books begin with one of Tim Lebbon's best modern hooks. There is a hidden black market in the body parts of mythological creatures. People pay fortunes for things like satyr hooves, gryphon claws, basilisk scales, and angel wings, and that trade works the way any ugly trade works, through hunting, slaughter, secrecy, and money.

That immediately changes the fantasy angle. The creatures here, known as the Kin, are not cute hidden folk waiting to help a chosen hero. They are endangered, angry, hunted, and very aware of what human beings have been doing to them. Angela Gough gets pulled into that world in Relics almost by accident, and once she sees it she cannot really go back to pretending ordinary life is intact. Vince, Grace, Mallian, and the wider Kin conflict make the series feel like urban fantasy built on trafficking and extinction rather than wish fulfillment.

The trilogy keeps widening from there. The Folded Land pushes Angela back to the United States, where the Kin are no less hidden and no less dangerous, and where her niece Sammi becomes entangled with a deeper supernatural realm. The Edge raises the pressure again by bringing buried infection, drowned history, and open conflict closer to the surface. So the books move from secret black-market horror toward something more like a coming war between humanity and the beings it tried to harvest into pieces.

This is fantasy with a very sharp horror spine.

Setting matters here because Lebbon keeps one foot in recognizable modern life while letting the stranger world keep leaking through. The result is a trilogy about myth, exploitation, family, and survival, but it also works as a chase story. Angela is almost always one bad decision away from losing what little ground she has managed to keep. If you like hidden-world fantasy that feels more dangerous than cozy, and more wounded than whimsical, this is the right lane.