Scott Reintgen Books in Order

If you want YA sci-fi: Nyxia → Nyxia Unleashed → Nyxia Uprising
If you want brutal fantasy and phoenix horse racing: Ashlords → Bloodsworn
If you want dark academia with teeth: A Door in the Dark → A Whisper in the Walls → A Burning in the Bones
If you want bookish middle grade fantasy: Saving Fable → Escaping Ordinary → Breaking Badlands
If you want younger sci-fi and dragons: The Last Dragon on Mars → The Rise of Neptune

Scott Reintgen grew up in Cary, North Carolina, on a street packed with cousins. He has said that living near fourteen cousins pushed him into the role of family storyteller early, and that mix of noise, competition, and imagination still feels present in his books.

That early audience was good training.

A high school teacher helped set him on a more serious writing path. After reading something he had written, Susan Lobasso moved him out of Spanish and into creative writing, a small act of faith that Reintgen still points to as a turning point. He went on to spend his college and graduate years focused on literature, later earning a Master of Arts in Teaching from NC State and teaching English and creative writing in North Carolina public schools.

Teaching mattered a lot. Reintgen has said he wrote Nyxia for his students, wanting a book that felt exciting enough to hook reluctant readers while still giving them characters and choices worth thinking about. That debut follows Emmett Atwater, a Detroit teen recruited for a dangerous mission in space, and it set the tone for much of Reintgen’s work: big stakes, fast pacing, and young people trying to hold on to themselves inside systems built to use them.

From there, he kept moving across science fiction and fantasy without losing that engine. The Nyxia books lean into corporate secrets, survival, and found-family tension. Ashlords turns phoenix horse racing into a brutal political contest. A Door in the Dark shifts into dark academia, with stranded student magicians and a city built on unequal power. Even when the setting changes, readers tend to find the same strengths underneath: momentum, inventive worldbuilding, and protagonists who have to think as hard as they fight.

He also writes for middle grade readers, and those books show another side of his range.

In Saving Fable, he plays with the idea of side characters fighting for their place inside a world of stories. The Problem with Prophecies gives a young seer named Celia Cleary a future she desperately wants to change. The Last Dragon on Mars blends space adventure with dragon lore for younger readers. Across these books, Reintgen keeps the danger real, but he also leaves room for humor, warmth, and the messy feelings that come with growing up.

One thing that links his work is the kind of kid he likes to write about. Reintgen often centers outsiders, scholarship students, working-class heroes, or young people who begin with less power than everyone around them. His stories ask what happens when those characters are forced into unfair games, rigid hierarchies, or ancient systems that seem impossible to challenge. They usually answer with grit, cleverness, and a refusal to stay in the role the world assigned them.

Now he lives in North Carolina with his wife, Katie, and their three children. Before becoming a full-time author, he taught at Jordan High School and Holly Springs High School, and that teacher energy still seems close at hand. Whether he is writing about starships, prophecies, phoenix horses, or dragons on Mars, his books are built to keep readers turning pages, and maybe to remind a hesitant reader that one good story really can change everything.