Tessa Gratton Books in Order
Explore Tessa Gratton books in order, with short summaries, series guides, related worlds, and quick tips on where to start reading.
Last updated: July 8, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
29 books
Blood Magic
by Tessa Gratton
2011
Reeling from her parents' deaths, Silla Kennicott turns to a mysterious spellbook that answers only to blood. As she and newcomer Nick chase the truth, desire and dangerous magic draw them toward something hungry in the shadows.
The Blood Keeper
by Tessa Gratton
2012
Mab Prowd has grown up on a Kansas farm where blood magic is ordinary, until one careless spell wakes an old curse. As it reaches for her power and for Will Sanger, the strange beauty of magic turns dangerous fast.
The Curiosities
by Tessa Gratton
2012
This anthology collects eerie, witty, and experimental short stories from Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff, complete with handwritten notes in the margins that reveal how each piece was built, revised, and occasionally rescued from disaster.
The Lost Sun
by Tessa Gratton
2013
In an America shaped by Norse gods, Soren Bearskin fears the berserker rage in his blood. A quest to find the missing god Baldur becomes a road trip through prophecy, monsters, and the life Soren wants for himself.
Glory's Teeth
by Tessa Gratton
2014
Glory is really the Fenris Wolf, trapped in the body of a girl and hungry enough to end the world. As omens gather, love, loyalty, and appetite collide in a dark novella about fate and ruin.
Gold Runner
by Tessa Gratton
2014
Amon Thorson, black-market dealer and bastard son of Thor, gets tangled in stolen magic when Loki's Mask of Changing disappears. Hunted, reckless, and drawn to a very dangerous girl, he finds trouble spreading faster than he can outrun it.
Lady Berserk
by Tessa Gratton
2014
Vider Bearskin became one of the first female berserkers to stop needing any god, especially Loki. A televised dragon hunt pulls them back together, and soon Vider is fighting monsters outside and inside her own heart.
The Strange Maid
by Tessa Gratton
2014
Signy Valborn has spent years training to become one of Odin's Valkyries, but her fate depends on a riddle and a troll's heart. With the poet Ned and outcast berserker Soren, she crosses the icy north toward a brutal answer.
Weight of Stars
by Tessa Gratton
2014
This omnibus gathers the United States of Asgard novellas *Gold Runner*, *Lady Berserk*, and *Glory's Teeth*. It opens wider doors into Gratton's myth-soaked America, where trolls, gods, and damaged young heroes keep colliding.
The Anatomy of Curiosity
by Tessa Gratton
2015
Three longer stories from Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff are paired with candid commentary on idea, draft, and revision. It reads as part anthology, part writing workshop, showing exactly how each author shapes a raw concept into finished fiction.
The Apple Throne
by Tessa Gratton
2015
Only Soren remembers Astrid after she sacrifices her name and life to become near-divine guardian of the immortality apples. When he vanishes, Astrid breaks the gods' rules and leaves her hidden orchard to find him.
Alive and Home Here
by Alaya Dawn Johnson
2016
In this *Tremontaine* episode, Diane installs Micah at Tremontaine House while Kaab brings a new proposition about Will's fate. Alliances shift, enemies circle, and the city's careful manners start hiding sharper threats.
A Blur of Bright Water
by Tessa Gratton
2017
Reza looks back on Vincent as old wounds reopen, while Diane presses her private war into riskier territory. Across Riverside, revenge plots, stolen goods, and school politics knot together into fresh trouble.
Onward
by Tessa Gratton
2018
This late *Tremontaine* episode brings hard endings and new beginnings as the tangled season pushes toward resolution. In a city ruled by manners, money, and sharp steel, moving forward costs everyone something.
Strange Grace
by Tessa Gratton
2018
A village prospers by sacrificing one boy to the Devil's Forest whenever the Slaughter Moon rises. When the moon comes early, Mairwen, Rhun, and Arthur uncover buried lies, dangerous love, and the true cost of the bargain.
The Queens of Innis Lear
by Tessa Gratton
2018
On a windswept island ruled by star prophecy and earth magic, three royal sisters struggle for crown, love, and survival as their father's kingdom cracks apart. It is a family war as much as a political one.
Lady Hotspur
by Tessa Gratton
2020
A century after Innis Lear, Mora and Hal Bolingbrooke are torn apart by rebellion, duty, and old loyalties. At the center stands Lady Hotspur, a fierce knight whose choice may decide the future of the realm.
Night Shine
by Tessa Gratton
2020
Nothing, an orphan hidden in the empress's palace, sets out to rescue Prince Kirin from the Sorceress Who Eats Girls. Her journey through demon-haunted forests and spirit roads reveals hard truths about magic, love, and her own power.
Moon Dark Smile
by Tessa Gratton
2022
Heir Raliel Dark-Smile finally leaves the palace and secretly takes Moon, the great demon bound to her family, into the wider empire. As plots gather around the throne, she must decide what freedom, loyalty, and power are worth.
Path of Deceit
by Tessa Gratton
2022
On Dalna, Marda Ro believes the Path of the Open Hand offers purpose and truth. When she meets kind Jedi Padawan Kevmo Zink, friendship and faith collide, and the Path's hidden agenda turns tragic.
Chaos & Flame
by Tessa Gratton
2023
Darling Seabreak wants revenge on House Dragon for destroying her family, while Talon Goldhoard is a dragon prince trapped inside his house's brutal war. When prophecy and blood magic tighten around them, enemies become uneasy allies.
Quest for Planet X
by Tessa Gratton
2023
Set deep in the High Republic frontier, this adventure follows young Jedi and pilots chasing the mystery of Planet X. Hyperspace prospectors, saboteurs, and Outer Rim dangers turn the mission into a race across space.
Tales of Light and Life
by Zoraida Cordova
2023
This anthology gathers High Republic stories by several writers, including Claudia Gray, to bridge phases and revisit key heroes and villains. It closes old threads, opens new ones, and deepens the era's larger conflict.
Blood & Fury
by Tessa Gratton
2024
Months after chaos remakes her as the long-lost Phoenix, Darling struggles to control her power and unite the warring houses. Talon must end the war his family fed, even as betrayal and darker forces close in.
Defy the Storm
by Tessa Gratton
2024
A year after Starlight Beacon falls, Vernestra Rwoh and Avon Starros head into the Nihil's Occlusion Zone to rescue Imri Cantaros. Behind the Stormwall, every step brings new danger, old grief, and the Nameless.
Temptation of the Force
by Tessa Gratton
2024
With the Nihil war grinding on, Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann can no longer ignore the bond between them. Their hunt for Marchion Ro pushes them toward the Nameless, hard choices, and a fight that is personal as well as galactic.
The Crystal Crown
by Tessa Gratton
2025
Jedi Padawans Jecki and Yord are sent to a planet-wide coming-of-age ritual while their Masters handle a political mess. When celebration turns deadly, the uneasy pair must work together to protect new friends and survive the trap.
The Mercy Makers
by Tessa Gratton
2025
Iriset, gifted outlaw and maker of magical disguises, wants to push forbidden magic far beyond the empire's rules. To save her condemned father, she must enter the palace, deceive a ruling family, and risk falling for the people she means to destroy.
The Shape of Monsters
by Tessa Gratton
2026
After shattering a god's prison, Iriset is thrown into a city where monstrous bodies and forbidden architecture are ordinary facts of life. To get home, she and Emperor Lyric must face gods, politics, and the damage they have done to each other.
Where should I start?
If you want big adult epic fantasy: The Queens of Innis Lear → Lady Hotspur
If you want dark YA fairy tales: Strange Grace → Night Shine → Moon Dark Smile
If you want modern myth and road-trip gods: The Lost Sun → The Strange Maid → The Apple Throne
If you want blood magic and gothic romance: Blood Magic → The Blood Keeper
If you want Star Wars and the High Republic: Path of Deceit → Quest for Planet X → Defy the Storm → Temptation of the Force
Author bio
Tessa Gratton was born on a military base in Okinawa, Japan, and spent much of childhood moving from place to place because her father was in the Navy. That sense of motion never really left. A lot of her books are full of travelers, borderlands, chosen loyalties, and people trying to decide who they are when the world keeps changing around them.
Kansas stuck.
Gratton earned a B.A. in Gender Studies from the University of Kansas in 2003, and that background shows up in the questions her fiction keeps asking. Who gets power. Who gets named monstrous. What family means when love and duty pull in different directions. Even in the most magical parts of her work, the human problem underneath is usually very clear.
Writing for her has never meant doing just one thing. Alongside novels, she has written short fiction, collaborated on projects like The Curiosities and The Anatomy of Curiosity, and worked with Madcap Retreats as associate director. That mix of solo work and collaboration feels right for an author whose stories are often interested in community, creative risk, and the messy process of becoming.
Her early novels, beginning with Blood Magic, lean into gothic atmosphere, dangerous desire, and the way a small town can hide very old hunger. In the United States of Asgard books, starting with The Lost Sun, she scales up without losing that emotional intensity. Those novels mix Norse gods, prophecy, monsters, and road-trip energy with questions about inheritance, violence, and whether a person can step outside the story written for them.
Nobody gets an easy crown in a Tessa Gratton book.
That is especially true in The Queens of Innis Lear and Lady Hotspur, the adult fantasies many readers use as a doorway into her work. These novels take Shakespearean bones and rebuild them into stories about queens, knights, prophecy, family damage, and love under pressure. Readers who like dense worlds, political struggle, and emotionally complicated women tend to stay here a while.
She can go intimate, too. Strange Grace turns a bargain with the devil into a dark village fairy tale about sacrifice and desire. Night Shine and Moon Dark Smile move through demon-haunted palaces, imperial rituals, and queer longing. Across all of them, Gratton returns to a few favorite pressures: transformation, devotion, identity, and the price of wanting to be fully seen.
More recently, she has moved easily between huge shared universes and wholly her own worlds. She has written several Star Wars: The High Republic novels, including Path of Deceit, Quest for Planet X, Defy the Storm, and Temptation of the Force. At the same time, The Mercy Makers opens a new adult fantasy trilogy built around forbidden body-changing magic, palace politics, and a heroine who wants far more from the world than it is willing to give.
Queer, nonbinary, and openly interested in stories about identity, desire, and transformation, Gratton writes fantasy that likes its beauty with teeth.
She now lives at the edge of the Kansas prairie with her wife. It is a fitting home base for a writer whose books are always looking past the horizon, toward stranger magic, older gods, and the next hard choice.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.














































Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts