Holly Black Books in Order (Stolen Heir, Modern Faerie Tales, Spiderwick Chronicles, Curse Workers)
Holly Black is an American writer mostly known for her series of children’s books and young-adult fantasy series, working with authors like Tony DiTerlizzi and Cassandra Clare. She also works for DC Comics on the New52 Lucifer series. She has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Locus Award.
Her most famous work is The Spiderwick Chronicles series, but also the Modern Faerie Tales, the Folk of the Air, The Curse Workers, and Magisterium. Black is also a co-author, with artist Ted Naifeh, of the graphic novel series The Good Neighbors.
How to Read the Books and Series by Holly Black in Order?
The Spiderwick Chronicles in Order
Written with Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a series of children’s books about the adventures of the Grace children, twins Simon and Jared, and their older sister Mallory. Everything began after the children moved into the decrepit Spiderwick Estate with their mother, Helen. Soon, they discover a world of fairies that they never knew existed.
For more information, go to the dedicated The Spiderwick Chronicles Books in Order.
- The Field Guide (2003)
- The Seeing Stone (2003)
- Lucinda’s Secret (2003)
- The Ironwood Tree (2004)
- The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004)
Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles
- The Nixie’s Song (2007)
- A Giant Problem (2008)
- The Wyrm King (2009)
The Modern Faerie Tales Series
Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tales is a young-adult fantasy series set on the Jersey Shore about sixteen-year-old American Kaye Fierch, a young nomad who tours the country with her mother’s rock band.
- Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (2002) – Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she drifts from place to place with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces them back to Kaye’s childhood home. But Kaye’s life takes another turn when she stumbles upon an injured faerie knight in the woods. Kaye has always been able to see faeries where others could not, and she chooses to save the strange young man instead of leaving him to die.
- Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (2005) – When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system. But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends that set her on edge. When Val is talked into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature, she must strike a bargain to make it out with her life intact.
- Ironside: A Modern Faery’s Tale (2007) – As the darkest day of the year approaches, the time has come for Roiben’s coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing-her love for Roiben. But love in the realm of faerie is no simple matter, and when Kaye declares herself to Roiben during the celebration, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest to find a faerie who can tell a lie.
The Curse Workers Series
A Fantasy series by Holly Black set in an alternate world where workers are rare people with magical abilities that sometimes run in families. Using their abilities requires skin contact and is illegal, which is why most workers are part of crime families. About 10% of the population are workers.
There are 7 types of workers. Of those, about 60% are luck workers, while other skills, such as death working, emotion working, memory working, dream working and physical working less common. The rarest type of worker is a transformation worker: they can transform anything into something else.
- White Cat (2010) – Cassel comes from a shady, magical family of con artists and grifters. He doesn’t fit in at home or at school, so he’s used to feeling like an outsider. He’s also used to feeling guilty-he killed his best friend, Lila, years ago. But when Cassel begins to have strange dreams about a white cat, and people around him are losing their memories, he starts to wonder what really happened to Lila. In his search for answers, he discovers a wicked plot for power that seems certain to succeed. But Cassel has other ideas-and a plan to con the conmen.
- Red Glove (2011) – After rescuing his brothers from Zacharov’s retribution and finding out that Lila will never be his, Cassel is trying to reestablish some kind of normalcy in his life. That was never going to be easy for someone from a worker family tied to one of the big crime families, and a mother whose cons get more reckless by the day. But Cassel is also coming to terms with what it means to be a transformation worker and figuring out how to have friends.
- Black Heart (2012) – Cassel Sharpe knows he’s been used as an assassin, but he’s trying to put all that behind him. He’s trying to be good, even though he grew up in a family of con artists and cheating comes as easily as breathing to him. He’s trying to do the right thing. And he’s trying to convince himself that working for the government is the right choice, even though he’s been raised to believe they are the enemy of all curse workers.
The Magisterium Series
Children’s fantasy series written by Holly Black with Cassandra Clare, and illustrator Scott Fischer, The Magisterium Series is about twelve-year-old Callum Hunt who joins the Magisterium in order to become a mage.
- The Iron Trial (2014) – Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him. So he tries his best to do his worst — and fails at failing. Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . .
- The Copper Gauntlet (2015) – It’s not easy for Call…and it gets even harder after he checks out his basement and discovers that his dad might be trying to destroy both him and Havoc. Call escapes to the Magisterium ― but things only intensify there. The Alkahest ― copper gauntlet capable of separating certain magicians from their magic ― has been stolen. And in their search to discover the culprit, Call and his friends Aaron and Tamara awaken the attention of some very dangerous foes ― and get closer to an even more dangerous truth.
- The Bronze Key (2016) – Magic can save you. Magic can kill you. It should be a time of celebration. The Enemy of Death is dead; a severed head proof of his downfall. The magical world has no reason to believe otherwise, and Callum, Tamara, and Aaron are celebrated as heroes. But at a party held in their honor, things go horribly, brutally wrong. A fellow student is callously murdered, and it seems Call’s worst fears are confirmed: there is a spy in the Magisterium. No one is safe. Now, using the powerful magic they’ve been taught, the trio must risk their lives to track down the killer. But magic is dangerous – in the wrong hands it could bring terrible destruction. And reveal the deadliest secret of all…
- The Silver Mask (2017) – Callum Hunt’s life has fallen apart. His friend is gone. The spy has escaped. His secret is out. He is facing an existence behind bars, banished from the rest of the magical community for what he is – for what he might become. But a shocking revelation has promised freedom – at a cost. Will he stay strong, and faithful to his friends and teachers? Or take the risk, and destroy everything he’s ever loved? This fourth year at the Magisterium will be unlike anything else that has gone before…
- The Golden Tower (2018) – Callum Hunt has been a hero and an outcast, a force of good and a portent of evil. While the doors of the Magisterium have been open to him, he has never felt entirely welcome. If anything, he has felt others’ resentment . . . and fear. Now, as he begins his final year at the magical school, his place is less certain than ever. With one unique exception, he is estranged from most of his friends. A furtive darkness still hounds him. And the greatest challenge he will ever face is right around the corner.
The Folk of the Air Series
A young adult fantasy book series by Holly Black about the Jude Duarte and Cardan Greenbriar, a mortal girl and a faerie prince in a violent world full of complicated feelings.
- The Cruel Prince (2018) – Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
- The Lost Sisters (2018) – A novella. While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister, Taryn, began to fall in love with the trickster Locke. Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.
- The Wicked King (2019) – After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.
- Queen of Nothing (2019) – Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power. Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time, determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her twin sister, Taryn, whose mortal life is in peril.
- How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (2020) – A novella. Before Cardan was a cruel prince or a wicked king, he was a faerie child with a heart of stone. In this sumptuously illustrated tale, Holly Black reveals a deeper look into the dramatic life of Elfhame’s enigmatic high king.
Holly Black’s Stolen Heir Series
A runaway queen. A reluctant prince. And a quest that may destroy them both. Welcome to Holly Black’s Elfhame world.
- Stolen Heir (2023) – Suren, child queen of the Court of Teeth, and the one person with power over her mother, fled to the human world, where she lives feral in the woods. Lonely, and still haunted by the merciless torments she endured in the Court of Teeth, she bides her time by releasing mortals from foolish bargains. She believes herself forgotten until the storm hag Bogdana chases her through the night streets. Suren is saved by none other than Prince Oak, heir to Elfhame, to whom she was once promised in marriage and who she has resented for years. Now seventeen, Oak is charming, beautiful and manipulative. He’s on a mission that will lead him into the north, and he wants Suren’s help. But if she agrees, it will mean guarding her heart against the boy she once knew and a prince she cannot trust, as well as confronting all the horrors she thought she had left behind.
- The Prisoner’s Throne (2024)
Standalone Novels By Holly Black
- Doll Bones (2013) – Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen-and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.
- The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (2013) – Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. It’s an eternal party, shown on TV 24 hours a day – gorgeous, glamorous and deadly! The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave …
- The Darkest Part of the Forest (2015) – Near the little town of Fairfold, in the darkest part of the forest, lies a glass casket. Inside the casket lies a sleeping faerie prince that none can rouse. He’s the most fascinating thing Hazel and her brother Ben have ever seen. They dream of waking him – but what happens when dreams come true? In the darkest part of the forest, you must be careful what you wish for…
- Heart of the Moors: An Original Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Novel (2019) – Newly-queened Aurora struggles to be the best leader to both the humans and Fair Folk under her reign; her beau, Prince Phillip, longs to get to know Aurora and her kingdom better; and Maleficent has trouble letting go of the past.
- Book of Night (2022) – Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear―and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister―all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.
Graphic novels and comics by Holly Black
The Good Neighbors Reading Order
Written by Holly Black with art from Ted Naifeh. Rue Silver’s mother has disappeared . . . and her father has been arrested, suspected of killing her. But it’s not as straightforward as that. Because Rue is a faerie, like her mother was. And her father didn’t kill her mother — instead, he broke a promise to Rue’s faerie king grandfather, which caused Rue’s mother to be flung back to the faerie world. Now Rue must go to save her — and must also defeat a dark faerie that threatens our very mortal world.
- The Good Neighbors: Kin (2008)
- The Good Neighbors: Kith (2009)
- The Good Neighbors: Kind (2010)
Lucifer by Holly Black (DC New 52)
The second Lucifer series from DC Comics, in the DC New 52. God is dead and Gabriel has accused Lucifer of His murder. He had motive and opportunity, but he can prove his innocence. If Gabriel finds the killer and takes the culprit into custody, his sins will be forgotten, and he’ll be welcomed back to Silver City. For more information about Lucifer, follow the link.
- Lucifer vol. 1: Cold Heaven (2016)
- Lucifer vol. 2: Father Lucifer (2017)
- Lucifer vol. 3: Blood in the Streets (2017)
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