ZR Ellor Books in Order

If you want a strong first taste of Ellor's YA work: May the Best Man Win → Acting the Part
If you like stories about fame, fandom, and fake dating: Acting the Part
If you want adult fantasy with politics and dragons: Silk Fire
If you want dark fairy-tale fantasy: No Better Than Beasts

ZR Ellor grew up in Washington, D.C., and started writing early. They have said they wrote their first novel at twelve, which feels like the kind of fact that explains a lot, because the work came first and never really left.

As a kid, Ellor found refuge in books. They also noticed what was missing. Queer characters were often pushed to the edge of the story, or smoothed into versions that did not feel messy, awkward, or fully human. That gap became part of the reason they wrote in the first place, not just to tell stories, but to make more room for the kinds of lives they wanted to see on the page.

For a while, though, writing had real competition. Ellor studied English literature and biology at Cornell University and has joked that they narrowly escaped a career in the sciences. That mix of interests still shows up in the books. Even when the stories are romantic or dramatic, there is usually a strong sense of systems, pressure, and people trying to work out how institutions, families, or fandoms shape the choices they make.

The spark for May the Best Man Win came partly from Ellor's own high school homecoming season, with its pep rallies, parades, and full-on school-spirit spectacle. The novel follows Jeremy Harkiss, a trans boy running for Homecoming King against Lukas, the ex-boyfriend who broke his heart and still gets under his skin. Readers who connect with it tend to like its big feelings, sharp school politics, and willingness to let teen relationships stay complicated.

Then came Acting the Part, another YA story, this time about a teen actor, a fake relationship, and the pressure of public representation. Set around the hit sci-fi show Galaxy Spark, it follows Lily Ashton as fandom, career plans, and gender questions all collide at once. Ellor is especially interested in what happens when performance stops feeling separate from real life.

They also write fantasy as Zabé Ellor.

That side of their work stretches wider in scale but keeps some of the same emotional concerns. Silk Fire moves into adult fantasy with revenge, dragons, and political intrigue, while No Better Than Beasts turns Nutcracker ideas into something colder, stranger, and more dangerous. Across the genres, Ellor returns to queer characters under pressure, tricky family bonds, and people trying to name themselves clearly in worlds that would rather hand them a script.

Ellor also works in publishing as a literary agent, which may help explain how closely the books watch the machinery around stories, who gets centered, who gets edited out, and who has to fight for a different ending. It is a very writerly concern, but Ellor usually approaches it through character first, not theory.

These are not neat books, and that seems to be part of the point.

Ellor has lived in Southern California and is based in Long Beach. Away from the desk, the details are pleasantly ordinary: running, video games, travel, and good food. That everyday mix fits the fiction too. However heightened the setup gets, a homecoming war, a fake-dating scandal, a dragon-blessed power struggle, the pull is usually personal. The question underneath is simple: who gets to be fully seen?