Upon Her Divine Body Books in Order

Upon Her Divine Body gathers SM Reine's fantasy stories set in a world of Elves, Dwarves, contested power, and dangerous personal attachments. The books share a setting rather than a single continuing cast. One approaches that world through a gothic romantic epic; another follows an assassin pulled into a struggle over political rule. Queer characters and questions about identity are central, while private desires can become entangled with conflicts much larger than any one relationship.

Love and political power are rarely far apart in this world.

Atop the Trees, Beneath the Mountains begins with Esor an Amen expecting an ordinary teaching position at a distant tower. Instead, the job places Esor inside a household with old secrets and a lord whose attention becomes controlling. Lord Corvin is expected to marry a woman, yet he is fixated on Esor. The imbalance between employer and newcomer gives the relationship its troubling edge. Reine presents this as a dark romantic fantasy, with obsession and vulnerability woven into the invitation to enter an unfamiliar noble household.

Beyond the tower, the Elven empire is failing and the Dwarves live outside its order. A Dwarven warlord approaches the port city seeking a hostage as revenge, drawing Esor into a conflict whose full history is initially concealed. The book's romantic triangle connects an Elf, a Dwarf, and a protagonist whose story includes a nonbinary identity. Its scale allows the personal narrative to sit within a larger imagined history. Reine has described building the world with particular attention to language and its origins, alongside the book's gothic atmosphere.

The Liar's Throne changes the pace and central problem. Nina Silverhand is an experienced assassin who fails to kill Patrician Lorent. When the person who hired her tries to eliminate her as well, Nina and Lorent gain a reason to cooperate. They need to identify who wants his throne, even though their partnership began with an attempt on his life. The story includes bodyguards, Dwarven ruins, and an assassin who has little patience for mercy. This is a more contained adventure with its own people and political stakes.

Start with Atop the Trees, Beneath the Mountains for the series' first introduction to the world and its darker romantic concerns. The Liar's Throne can also be read independently: it has a separate cast, location, and timeframe. Readers following both should expect a change in emphasis rather than the next chapter of Esor's life. The connection is the imagined world and its recurring interest in how people negotiate desire, identity, and authority. Together the books offer different views of a setting where an intimate attachment or an unexpected alliance can become a matter of public consequence.