Wickery Books in Order

Wickery is a young adult fantasy duology built around two heirs who are supposed to marry for political reasons and would honestly rather not. Adraa of Belwar and Jatin of Naupure met as children, spent years sniping from afar, and come back into each other's orbit with plenty of baggage. The fun of the series is that their personal tension never stays personal for long. Every argument sits inside questions of duty, magic, and who gets to shape the future of a kingdom.

In Cast in Firelight, Dana Swift drops them into a setup that is part royal romance, part undercover mystery. Adraa is preparing to prove herself to her people, while Jatin returns as a wizard who has mastered all nine colors of magic. Their arranged marriage is meant to unite two of Wickery's strongest kingdoms, but criminal forces are already moving in Belwar. Both characters end up working behind disguises and hidden names, which means they start to trust, challenge, and fall for each other without fully realizing who the other one is.

That secret-identity thread gives the first book a lively, almost caper-like energy.

The setting matters a lot here. Wickery is made up of kingdoms with different customs, rulers, and magical traditions, so the alliance between Belwar and Naupure always feels bigger than one couple. Magic is woven into everyday life and into status, power, and survival too, whether that means Jatin's color-based skill or Adraa's firelight invention. The books move between palaces, city streets, criminal hideouts, and public ceremonies, so the world feels both royal and lived in.

Across the series, the ongoing story is really about trust under pressure. Adraa and Jatin are heirs first, but they are also teenagers trying to decide what kind of rulers, partners, and people they want to be. Swift keeps the tone fast and romantic, yet the stakes stay real. There are conspiracies, prison walls, old grudges, and plenty of magic-fueled danger, but there is also banter, longing, and the awkward work of learning that the person who gets under your skin may be the one you need most.

Bound by Firelight picks up after a magical eruption devastates Belwar and turns Adraa from heroine to suspect in the eyes of her own people. She is thrown into the Dome, a fortress prison filled with criminals who have every reason to hate her, while Jatin scrambles to prove her innocence and stop a wider plot from tearing their world apart. That shift gives the second book a darker edge, but it still stays focused on the same heartbeat, love, loyalty, and the cost of choosing each other when whole kingdoms are watching.

If you like fantasy that blends romance with palace politics, magical investigations, and a lot of sparks between its leads, Wickery is an easy series to settle into. Start with Cast in Firelight and keep Bound by Firelight close by, because the sequel is very much part of the same story.