Trickster Books in Order

Eden Robinson's Trickster series follows Jared Martin, a Haisla teen who is already carrying more than most adults. When the trilogy opens in Son of a Trickster, he is trying to survive high school, keep his chaotic family from falling apart, and manage the kind of daily stress that would flatten almost anyone. He bakes weed cookies, looks after people older than he is, and lives with a mother who can be loving, reckless, and frightening, sometimes all in the same afternoon.

Then the impossible starts pushing into view. Jared hears ravens talk, sees ghosts, and slowly learns that the old stories around him are not safely tucked away in the past. His biological father is the Trickster Wee'git, and that means magic is not a metaphor in these books. It is a family problem, a personal problem, and sometimes a life-or-death problem.

Nothing stays ordinary for long.

The setting matters a lot. Son of a Trickster is rooted in Kitimat and Haisla territory, where gossip, grudges, kinship, and history shape every choice. In Trickster Drift, Jared moves to Vancouver for school and hopes distance will make life simpler. It does not. The city gives him new friends and a little room to grow, but it also brings new dangers, human and supernatural. By Return of the Trickster, the pressure on Jared has built into an all-out reckoning with the powers circling his family.

What keeps the trilogy working is Jared himself. He is funny, kind, exhausted, stubborn, and often in way over his head. Across the three books, he has to figure out sobriety, trust, what kind of son he wants to be, and whether power can be used without turning cruel. Around him is a big, unforgettable cast, Maggie, aunties, cousins, exes, elders, spirits, monsters, and enemies who are sometimes all tangled together.

These books are wild, but they are also very grounded.

Robinson mixes horror, deadpan humour, family drama, and Indigenous storytelling in a way that feels lived-in instead of showy. The series can turn from a joke to a nightmare in a few lines, then swing back again without losing its balance. If you like coming-of-age fantasy with real pressure behind it, read them in order: Son of a Trickster, then Trickster Drift, then Return of the Trickster. The first novel was adapted for television as Trickster in 2020, but the books give you the fuller, stranger version of Jared's story.