Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Publication Order of Legends of Muirwood Books
Publication Order of Covenant of Muirwood Books
Publication Order of The Dawning of Muirwood Books
Publication Order of Deep Magic Collections Books
Publication Order of The Dresden Codex Books
Publication Order of The First Argentines Books
Publication Order of The Grave Kingdom Books
Publication Order of The Harbinger Books
Publication Order of Kingfountain Books
Publication Order of Whispers from Mirrowen Books
Publication Order of The Poisoner of Kingfountain Books
Chronological Order of The Poisoner of Kingfountain Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Publication Order of Anthologies
Growing up in the high tech surroundings of Silicon Valley, Jeff Wheeler was well-versed in the world of technology from a young age. This was a world that would later in his life, have a huge impact on his career. Before all his success though it was on an old computer lying around his house, specifically an Apple II, that Jeff first got bitten by the writing bug. Starting off by writing short stories throughout middle school, Jeff began to write his first full-length novels upon entering high school. His first completed novel, an adventure/thriller called The Shadyrock Murderer, ended up becoming a trilogy and was the first in a prolific series of five novels that Jeff completed during high school.
Never one to be short on ideas, Jeff Wheeler further perfected his craft through storytelling during games of Dungeons and Dragons during high school. Inventing stories to bring these games alive, Jeff would engross his friends and family members as they played the fantasy game.
Always interested in fantasy novels, it was The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks that first got Jeff hooked on reading. Saying that by the end of the book he wanted to cry, Jeff was inspired to make people feel real emotions when reading his books.
Technology once again became a huge part of Jeff’s life as after two years spent on a church mission he returned to the Bay Area to work as a temp at computer giant Intel. Despite his day job Jeff continued his writing and wrote and rewrote Landmoor, a book he would later go on to publish, six times during these early years. Landmoor is a fantasy journey novel about Shae from Avisahn who needs to protect his homeland. The story was inspired by the tales he told during those early games of Dungeons and Dragons. It was during the writing of this novel that he really began to develop his skills as a writer.
This development continued after he started a monthly e-zine called Deep Magic. He attributes the number of amateur manuscripts he read while producing this magazine as the reason he was able to avoid many of the cliches and pitfalls that new writers make. As the readership of this monthly e-zine grew into the thousands he was able to self-publish some of his earlier novels such as Landmoor and Silverskin. It is a testament to Jeff’s love of his craft that even after all these years Deep Magic is still going strong and providing an outlet for talented writers.
Jeff’s real breakthrough came after taking a writing seminar with none other than Terry Brooks, the man who inspired Jeff all those years ago when he would stay up all night reading in middle school. After giving Jeff some tough yet honest criticism of his work, Terry encouraged him to keep on writing and told him a Steven King quote that says “the first million words are practice for becoming an author”.
After going home and realizing that all his previous writing output came to just over one million words, he made the decision to take this practice and put all his thoughts and efforts into a completely new trilogy of novels.
This trilogy began with a novel called the Wretched of Muirwood. This book about a kitchen girl called Abby who ends up accompanying a band of noblemen to oppose a tyrannical king is set in a fantasy world he first invented for an earlier novella he published in Deep Magic. Despite not getting any initial bites from publishers Jeff continued to write the trilogy at a rate of one novel a year, gaining precious feedback from friends and acquaintances as he went along.
Despite still not getting any bites from traditional publishers, this positive feedback, and the fact that so many people wanted to read his books, encouraged Jeff to go back to that early influence on his life: technology. Amazon’s self-publishing tool Createspace was really taking off at the time so he decided to use this tool to self-publish his trilogy in 2011. After releasing the novels on Kindle, sales went through the roof.
Only two years after first self-publishing the trilogy, Jeff was signed by Amazon’s fantasy/science fiction/horror imprint 47North. While writing at 47North Jeff has continued his prolific output; writing and publishing a total of eight books between 2013 and 2016.
His first series on the 47North imprint was the Whispers from Mirrowen series which contained the books Fireblood, Dryad-Born and Poison Well. Continuing in the fantasy style that he was now starting to master this series follows Tyrus of Kenatos as he tries to banish the world of Kenatus from the plagues that ravish the Kingdom. This book was incredibly successful and reached number one on the Amazon US fantasy fiction charts, with it even momentarily entering the Amazon top 100.
Following the continued success of these books, he revisited the worlds of Muirwood for a second trilogy called the Covenant of Muirwood. Set in the same world, yet centuries after, this series was again well received and reached the upper echelons of the amazon fantasy chart. The first book in the series was also the first of Jeff’s to be published in hardback.
Jeff’s third series on 47North is called Kingfountain. It is set in a completely new world and follows the young protagonist throughout the three books as he grows up from a boy into a man. The continued popularity of Jeff and his books was proven as he entered the Wall Street Journal book charts and the second book in the series gained his highest reader rating of any books published at that point.
Jeff’s career really has been a pursuit of a passion. From his early days staying up all night reading Terry Brooks novels and narrating games of Dungeons and Dragons, through his prolific years as a teenager honing his craft, all the way through to his recent success as a best-selling author. If your first one million words are practice and your second are best sellers, who knows what Jeff’s third one million words will be!
Book Series In Order » Authors » Jeff Wheeler
2 Responses to “Jeff Wheeler”
Leave a Reply
Any issues with the book list you are seeing? Or is there an author or series we don’t have? Let me know!
I might be wrong but I didn’t consider Landmoor and Silverkin stand alone books. It was a two book series.
I have enjoyed many Fantasy series. Like most settings I am rather ancient myself and my love of Fantasy started with Terry Brooks. I have now completed all of his books. Jeff Wheeler is up there with the best a truly brilliant writer. Read all his books and you will be enthralled and sated.