The Runestone Saga Books in Order

The Runestone Saga is Humphreys's dark YA fantasy trilogy, starting with The Fetch and continuing through Vendetta and Possession. The books begin with a familiar setup, a teenager finding strange objects in an attic, but they do not stay familiar for long. Sky March discovers his dead grandfather's journal and a set of runes, and that discovery blows open a world of doubles, spirit travel, ancestral memory, and body theft.

Family is the whole problem here.

Sky is the emotional center of the trilogy. He is unsettled, sleep-deprived, and unsure of himself when the series begins, which makes the magic feel all the more invasive. His cousin Kristin is just as important. She is not a sidekick. She challenges him, protects him, and gets pulled into the danger with him. Their shared past, and their shared bloodline, turns out to matter in ways neither of them understands at first.

The big force behind the series is Sigurd, their grandfather. He is not a kindly mentor. He teaches Sky what the runes can do, then shows why that knowledge is frightening. The magic in these books is built around the idea of the fetch, the double or wraith of a living person. From there Humphreys pushes outward into possession, transformation, and time travel through ancestral lives. That lets the trilogy move from present-day Britain into older worlds shaped by Norse belief, Corsican vendetta, witchcraft fears, and the long shadow of 1066.

The tone is darker than a standard portal fantasy. The books use history, but they also lean into horror, especially the loss of control that comes with slipping into another body or mind. Sky and Kristin are not just solving puzzles. They are trying to stop a powerful older figure who sees other people as tools, and they have to decide how much of his power they are willing to borrow in order to beat him.

The magic is thrilling, but it always asks for a price.

What makes the trilogy work is its mix of pace and unease. There are runic riddles, dangerous journeys into the past, animals and people used as vessels, and a constant sense that identity itself can be stolen. If you like YA fantasy that has real bite, with family conflict, myth, and time-bending stakes, The Runestone Saga is the place to start. It feels part adventure story, part ghost story, and part question about what, exactly, gets handed down in a family besides eye color and names.