Tremontaine (Malinda Lo) Books in Order

This page tracks Malinda Lo's corner of Tremontaine, but the story itself is an ensemble serial. Set before Ellen Kushner's Riverside novels, it drops readers into a city where manners, money, desire, scholarship, trade, and swordplay all matter at once. The series was written collaboratively, and Lo contributed three episodes to the first season, including A Tale of Two Ladies.

The main players form a wonderfully unstable group. Diane, Duchess Tremontaine, is brilliant, calculating, and surrounded by old family trouble. Kaab, also called Ixkaab Balam, is a foreign trader and skilled swordswoman trying to protect both her business and her independence. Rafe is an ambitious young scholar whose personal life is as messy as his professional climb. Micah, a mathematical prodigy from the country, becomes far more important to city politics than anyone expects.

In Riverside, gossip can cut as cleanly as a blade.

That is why the setting works so well. This is not a world built around battlefield campaigns or chosen-one prophecy. It is a city story. Warehouses, salons, lecture halls, bedrooms, docks, and ballrooms all matter. Chocolate shipments matter. Family names matter. Who gets invited, who gets excluded, and who is quietly making deals in the next room can matter just as much as any duel.

Across the serial, the tension comes from secrets that refuse to stay buried. There is a murder hanging over the story, but the larger engine is social and emotional pressure. Characters want love, status, security, revenge, freedom, or a place to belong, and those wants keep colliding. Because the story was originally built in episodes, each installment tends to sharpen one crisis while feeding the next, so revelations land fast and rarely stay contained.

Lo is a good fit for that rhythm. Her Tremontaine work leans into hidden histories, strained loyalties, and the way desire can become a political problem almost overnight. She has a feel for characters who are trying to hold themselves together while the room around them fills with rumor, temptation, and leverage. Her episodes help push the season toward harder choices and bigger exposures.

So what should you expect? Think fantasy of manners with a pulse. Clever talk, complicated attraction, class tension, and a city that runs on appearance almost as much as truth. If you like your fantasy social, sharp, and just a little scandalous, Tremontaine is very much playing your tune.