Under the Green Hill Books in Order

The Under the Green Hill books are middle grade fantasy with deep roots in British folklore. At the center is Meg Morgan, who is sent with her siblings Rowan, Priscilla, and James from America to stay with elderly relatives in the English countryside. What begins as a summer visit to an old country house quickly turns into something much stranger.

The hill is not just a hill.

At the Rookery, the children discover that the nearby Green Hill sits at the center of an ancient struggle between fairies and humans. Every seventh summer, a deadly conflict breaks out, and this time Rowan is chosen as a human champion. That choice gives the first book its shape. Meg, practical and fiercely loyal, becomes the emotional center of the story as she tries to protect her brother while realizing that the war affects far more than her own family.

The setting does a lot of work here. The series is full of old gardens, hidden paths, uncanny local customs, and the feeling that the countryside itself remembers more than it says. Sullivan draws on fairy lore without turning the magical world into something soft or harmless. These fairies are beautiful, powerful, and unpredictable. They are tied to the health of the land, but that does not mean they can be trusted.

The second book, Guardian of the Green Hill, picks up with the consequences of that first summer still fresh. Meg and the others are no longer innocent visitors. They know too much now. The story widens from one battle to a longer question about duty, inheritance, and who will keep the peace between the human world and the fairy one. A mysterious painter, a threatened guardian, and a fresh abduction pull Meg into an even more personal conflict.

What makes the series work is its balance. The books have the pleasures of classic children's fantasy, siblings on an adventure, an old house, a hidden world close at hand, but they also keep pressing on harder questions about loyalty, power, sacrifice, and the cost of growing into responsibility. Meg is brave, but she is never fearless, and that keeps the danger grounded.

Readers should expect a thoughtful kind of fantasy rather than nonstop action. There are battles and peril, yes, but also mood, atmosphere, and a sense that magic is tangled up with history, family, and place. If you like stories where the landscape feels alive and the folklore has real teeth, this series is a very good fit.