Tamora Pierce Books in Order

Start here — the foundation of the entire Tortall universe.

Alanna of Trebond disguises herself as a boy named Alan to pursue knight training at the palace while her twin brother sneaks off to study sorcery in her place. Pierce wrote the template for female heroes in fantasy fiction — this 1983 debut is still essential reading.

Still in disguise, Alanna grows into her power as a knight's squire while a conspiracy unfolds that threatens the prince she serves. The romance threads and political stakes both deepen sharply.

Now a knight, Alanna takes refuge with a desert tribe and is forced to become their shaman and first female magic-user. Pierce's world-building expands and the themes about female authority in resistant institutions grow more explicit.

Alanna undertakes a grand quest across multiple continents for a magical artifact, leading to the final confrontation with her nemesis. A satisfying conclusion to one of the genre's most important origin stories.

Can be read after book one of Song of the Lioness.

Thirteen-year-old Daine has wild magic — the ability to communicate with and heal animals — and joins the Queen's Riders on a journey that reveals the true scope of her gift. A gentler entry into the Tortall universe, centered on a wounded protagonist learning to trust people again.

Daine returns to the wolves she befriended in the first book to find their forest threatened by human encroachment and something older. The series develops its ecological concern alongside Daine's growing confidence.

A diplomatic mission to Carthak turns dangerous when Daine discovers the Emperor Mage is hiding secrets that threaten the peace treaty. The darkest book in the quartet, with genuine political weight and real consequences.

War breaks out in Tortall and Daine and Numair are pulled into the gods' realm to face the source of the conflict. The quartet's climax pays off four books of carefully built relationships.

Keladry of Mindelan becomes the first girl to openly attempt knight training since Alanna changed the law — no disguise, no special gifts, just stubborn persistence in the face of systematic resistance. A direct reckoning with what Alanna's legacy actually changed in the world.

Kel survives her provisional year and begins the harder work of building a reputation among people who expected her to quit. Pierce gives Kel a different kind of courage than Alanna — methodical, protective, and willing to take punishments to defend those with less power.

Kel is taken as squire by one of Tortall's most celebrated knights and faces her first real battlefield experience alongside real violence. The series grows substantially darker, preparing the reader for what the final book asks of its protagonist.

Kel receives her knight's shield but is immediately posted to defend a refugee camp rather than given a glorious assignment. The most thematically serious book in the Tortall universe — about the unglamorous, essential work of protecting ordinary people.

Alianne Cooper — Alanna's daughter — is sold into slavery in the Copper Isles and uses her father George's spy skills to navigate a brewing revolution she did not plan to join. Politically intricate, with a protagonist whose intelligence is her primary weapon.

The revolution in the Copper Isles reaches its breaking point as Aly orchestrates events from inside an increasingly dangerous court. A satisfying political thriller conclusion featuring one of Pierce's most capable protagonists.

Chronologically the earliest Tortall story. Can be read at any point after Song of the Lioness.

Beka Cooper, ancestor of George Cooper, begins training as a Dog — Tortall's law enforcement — in the roughest slum of the capital. Written as journal entries, it is the earliest chronological entry in Tortall and the most noir in feeling.

Promoted Dog Beka joins an officer she does not entirely trust on a mission to track counterfeit coins threatening the realm's economy. A tighter investigation story with a more self-assured protagonist.

Beka's most dangerous case takes her across Tortall on the hunt for a kidnapped prince — a case whose outcome will change the royal succession. The largest-scale Beka Cooper book, with political consequences that ripple into the rest of Tortall history.

Young Arram Draper begins his studies at the Imperial University of Carthak and discovers he has more magical talent than any living mage — an asset that makes him dangerous to powerful people. The only published entry in the Numair Chronicles, covering the origin of the Immortals series' most significant adult character.

Start here for the Emelan universe — no Tortall background required.

Four young mages — Sandry the noblewoman, Tris the merchant's daughter, Daja the trader outcast, and Briar the former street thief — meet at Winding Circle temple and discover their magic flows into each other. Pierce's Emelan universe begins here: gentler than Tortall, centered on craft magic and the chosen family that forms around it.

The four young mages from Sandry's Book face pirates who threaten their home, putting their still-new bond under real pressure. Each character's distinct magical specialty is developed and tested.

Daja, the group's Trader outcast, discovers a forge magic that may reconcile her with the community that cast her out. Pierce writes magic as craft in the truest sense — Daja's metalworking and her magic are the same thing.

A plague threatens Winding Circle and the four young mages must use everything they have learned together. A genuinely harrowing conclusion to the first quartet that does not shield young readers from loss.