The Rise of Northgall Books in Order

The Rise of Northgall is Juliette Cross at her darkest and most Gothic. This is a fae world shaped by war, old gods, prophecy, and creatures that do not fit neatly into hero or monster boxes. The setting has frozen forests, dangerous courts, cursed bloodlines, and the constant sense that something ancient is watching from just beyond the firelight. If you like fantasy romance with real menace in the background, this is the series most clearly built for that mood.

The opening book, The Wraith King, makes the tone clear right away. Princess Una Hartstone is offered to the enemy king, Gollaya Verbane, as the price for peace. That gives the book a classic forced-proximity setup, but Cross does not play it lightly. Una is walking back into a place tied to trauma, while Goll is trying to fulfill a prophecy that turns her into far more than a political bride. The Palace of Black Glass is full of secrets, and the war outside the walls is only part of the danger.

Then Kings and Bones slips into the series as a shorter but important side path. Murgha is effectively wagered away by her father and ends up in the hands of Vallon, a shadow fae priest with his own hidden purpose. The novella keeps the same Northgall feel, fatalistic, magical, and charged with distrust, while showing another corner of the fae world and the way divine plans keep pressing into private lives.

The Beast Lord widens the scope again. Jessamine Glenmyr is on the run and driven into beast fae territory, where Redvyr Vanglosa, chief of his people, becomes the last man she expects to need. Their romance carries the same blend of danger and tenderness that marks the series, but it also pushes the larger story forward. Grimlocks begin abducting women and children, hidden powers surface, and a deeper evil lurking beneath the mountain starts to feel impossible to ignore.

What Cross does especially well here is balance monstrous imagery with emotional vulnerability. Her heroes are fierce, territorial, and often feared by others, but the romances are not just about taming a beast. They are about trust, survival, and what happens when power is tied to fate. The heroines are not interchangeable, either. Una, Murgha, and Jessamine each approach danger differently, which helps the books feel connected without feeling repetitive.

Bleak, sensual, and heavy with prophecy.

If you want romantasy that leans into dark fae courts, war scars, and high emotional stakes, The Rise of Northgall is one of Cross's strongest series. It rewards reading in order, because the world is layered and the sense of looming, shared danger keeps growing with each entry.