Holly Black Books in Order
The author who taught a generation what fae fiction could be — Black's courts are beautiful, treacherous, and utterly impossible to leave behind.
About Holly Black
Holly Black has been writing faerie fiction since 2002, which means she built the genre that everyone else is now rushing to inhabit. What makes her work endure while imitators fade is her fidelity to the actual folklore: her faeries are not romantic leads in pointed-ear costumes. They are genuinely alien, genuinely dangerous, and bound by rules that make them more frightening rather than less. Jude Duarte, the protagonist of The Folk of the Air, is one of the great heroines of modern fantasy — not because she has powers or a destined role, but because she is ruthlessly strategic in a world that treats her as prey, and she wins through intelligence and nerve rather than magical inheritance. Black writes political scheming the way thriller writers write heist sequences — every move has a counter-move, and the reader is always slightly behind the best players on the board. She is also, underneath the knife-sharp plotting, deeply romantic: the tension between Jude and Cardan is one of the genre's most satisfying slow burns, and it earns its resolution completely.
Where to Start: The Cruel Prince vs. Book of Night
Start with The Cruel Prince if you are here for the fae books. It opens The Folk of the Air, introduces Elfhame and Jude Duarte, and is the entry point the overwhelming majority of readers are looking for. Start with Book of Night if you read adult fiction and want Black's darker, more noir register — it is set completely apart from Elfhame and requires no prior reading. For the full Folk of the Air order, including where the illustrated companion and the Stolen Heir duology fit, see the Folk of the Air reading order.
Holly Black Books in Order
The Folk of the Air
The core trilogy plus its illustrated companion — start here.
- 1
The Cruel Prince
The Folk of the Air, Book 1
A human girl stolen to the fae world schemes her way into the brutal faerie court — including into the orbit of the prince who despises her most. Wickedly plotted, razor-sharp, and impossible to put down.
Note: Start here. The best entry point into Holly Black's work.
- 2
The Wicked King
The Folk of the Air, Book 2
Jude has power now — and the cost of keeping it is far more dangerous than the cost of winning it. Black escalates every tension from Book 1 and ends on one of the genre's best cliffhangers.
- 3
The Queen of Nothing
The Folk of the Air, Book 3
The finale brings every character arc home with a satisfying ruthlessness — Cardan and Jude's relationship resolves in a way that earns every impossible chapter that preceded it.
- 4
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories
The Folk of the Air — illustrated companion
An illustrated companion told wholly from Cardan's perspective — his life before The Cruel Prince, an adventure beyond The Queen of Nothing, and full-colour art paired with every chapter.
Note: Companion volume, not part of the main arc. Read after The Queen of Nothing.
The Stolen Heir Duology
Set after the original trilogy, following Oak and Wren. Read The Folk of the Air first.
- 1
The Stolen Heir
The Stolen Heir, Book 1
The follow-up duology set after the original trilogy, moving north of Elfhame into colder, stranger territory and expanding the world considerably.
- 2
The Prisoner's Throne
The Stolen Heir, Book 2 — duology conclusion
Prince Oak is imprisoned in the icy north and bound to a monstrous new queen, forced to choose between the girl he has always loved and Elfhame itself. The duology's blood-soaked conclusion.
Modern Faerie Tales
Black's earliest faerie novels — darker, grittier, and set in a contemporary world.
- 1
Tithe
Modern Faerie Tales, Book 1
The first of the Modern Faerie Tales and the earliest of Holly Black's faerie novels — grittier and more contemporary than the Elfhame books.
- 2
Valiant
Modern Faerie Tales, Book 2
Seventeen-year-old Val runs away to New York under a new name and falls in with squatters living in the subway — then finds herself torn between an honourable monster and friends who are changing.
Note: A companion novel to Tithe — can be read on its own.
- 3
Ironside
Modern Faerie Tales, Book 3
At Roiben's coronation Kaye declares herself and is sent on an impossible quest: find a faerie who can tell a lie. A pixie against a queen, in a game of wits she was never meant to win.
The Charlatan Duology (Adult)
Black's adult fiction — darker and more noir than her YA work.
- 1
Book of Night
The Charlatan Duology, Book 1
Black's adult debut. Charlie Hall is a bartender and former con artist pulled back into an underground trade in shadow magic, murder, and stolen secrets.
Note: Adult fiction. Start here — completely separate from Elfhame.
- 2
Thief of Night
The Charlatan Duology, Book 2
Charlie Hall is the Hierophant now, hunting rogue shadows — but the lover she stole back has no memory of her, and the Blight behind a church massacre leaves her badly outmatched.
Standalone Novels
- 1
The Darkest Part of the Forest
Standalone
In the woods of Fairfold sleeps a horned boy in a glass coffin, and Hazel spent her childhood pretending to be his knight. Then he wakes, and she has to become one for real.
- 2
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Standalone
Tana wakes after an ordinary party surrounded by corpses, with an infected ex-boyfriend and a stranger keeping a terrible secret — and drives into the opulent, bloody heart of Coldtown.
The Curse Workers
Urban fantasy crime trilogy — magical con artists, mob families, and unreliable memory.
- 1
White Cat
The Curse Workers, Book 1
Cassel Sharpe is the only non-worker in a family of magical con artists — and the boy who killed his best friend. Then he starts sleepwalking, driven by dreams of a white cat with something to say.
Note: Start here for the Curse Workers trilogy.
- 2
Red Glove
The Curse Workers, Book 2
Cassel is courted by both the Feds and the mob, with a mother whose cons grow more reckless by the day and a past he remembers only in fragments. Neutrality is not on the table any more.
- 3
Black Heart
The Curse Workers, Book 3
Cassel knows he has been used as an assassin and is trying to go straight — but his mother is on the lam, the girl he loves is taking her place in the Mob, and the Feds want one last job.
Middle Grade
Co-written and illustrated middle-grade series — a different audience from the fae books.
- 1
The Field Guide
The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1 (with Tony DiTerlizzi)
The Grace children move into a ramshackle old family house and find a handmade field guide in the attic — proof of a faerie world beside their own, and one that would rather they stayed quiet.
Note: Book 1 of 5. Co-created with Tony DiTerlizzi.
- 2
The Nixie's Song
Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1 (with Tony DiTerlizzi)
Spiderwick heads south to Florida, where eleven-year-old Nick, his new stepsister Laurie, and his brother Julian meet a nixie with a giant problem — the lumbering, fire-breathing kind.
Note: Starts the follow-up sequence; read the original five first.
- 3
The Iron Trial
Magisterium, Book 1 (with Cassandra Clare)
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Callum Hunt wants to fail it, and fails at failing. The Magisterium is waiting: sensational, sinister, and tied to his past.
Note: Co-written with Cassandra Clare.
- 4
Doll Bones
Standalone middle grade
Zach, Poppy, and Alice have played one long game for years, ruled over by a bone-china doll called the Great Queen. Then Poppy starts dreaming of the girl whose ghost wants it buried.
Note: Newbery Honor winner.
If You Like Holly Black, Try:
ACOTAR is the adult evolution of what Black started with The Folk of the Air — lush fae courts, enemies-to-lovers, and heroines who fight for power rather than waiting to be saved.
Schwab shares Black's gift for protagonists you shouldn't trust and plots that reward readers willing to pay attention — morally complex, precisely written, deeply satisfying.
From Blood and Ash delivers the same forbidden-romance charge as The Cruel Prince with a mythological fantasy setting and JLA's signature addictive pacing.