Amanda Cockrell Books In Order

Publication Order of The Borderlands Books

Publication Order of The Centurions Books

Publication Order of Deer Dancers Books

Publication Order of The Horse Catchers Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Amanda Cockrell is a California native who was born to a novelist and a screenwriter. She has a creative writing and English master’s degree from Hollins College, and currently edits the literary journal at Hollins University.
Before she retired, she taught children’s literature and creative writing at Hollins’ Creative Writing MFA program and the Liberal Studies Master of Arts program.

For her writing prowess, she has been granted fiction fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Prior to that, she had been working as a copywriter and newspaper reporter for a rock radio station and an ad agency.

Amanda Cockrell published “The Legions of the Mist” her debut novel in 1979 and now has more than ten titles under her name.

Writing as Damion Hunter, she pens some very popular historical fiction novels.

Cockrell grew up in Ojai, California, a very small town where there was a hitching post outside the library and people often rode horses down Main Street.

Many Hollywood directors, actors, and writers made Ojai their bedroom and hence there was always something happening. Ojai also hosted every religious and philosophical movement that passed through California right from the 1920s.
As such, Amanda Cockrell had a very idyllic childhood and her hometown would become Ayala, the setting for many of her novels.

Given that Marian Cockrell her mother was a novelist and screenwriter and Francis M. Cockrell her father was a screenwriter, she began to write some bad stories while still in high school.
Her English teacher used to tell her that her stories were too shallow, and this was only amplified when she attended Hollins College for creative writing workshops.

Attending Hollins University during the 1960s, Amanda Cockrell majored in Russian Studies, even though she took as many creative lessons as they would let her and got to study with the likes of George Garrett and Richard Dillard.
During this time, she dreamed of one day working for the State Department since she loved medieval Russian history, even if she was terrible at the languages.

Following her graduation, she got a job working for a newspaper but in the 1980s, she worked in the development office at Hollins, which she loathed, given that she is awful at things such as fundraising.
The good thing is that she got free tuition and ultimately got her creative writing master’s degree alongside the likes of Richard Dillard and Jeanne Larsen.

It was from this connection that she was called to speak when they established the Children’s Literature program.

While her work with the Children’s program was initially supposed to be a small part-time administrative assignment, it soon became a full-fledged job.

What he had going for him was that Richard who founded it needed the director to be a writer and he believed there was no one better organized to run it than Cockrell.

Given that writing is one thing that she knows how to do very well, Amanda Cockrell has been making a living in writing in some form or other for most of her life.

Besides her novels, she has written radio commercials and ads for panty girdles. She has written wedding stories, local history, obituaries, book reviews and a plantation saga in paperback under a pseudonym, that will forever remain a secret.
She currently makes her home in Roanoke, Virginia alongside Tony Neuron her husband, and an odd assortment of cats and dogs.

Amanda Cockrell’s “When the Horses Came” is a riveting work that tells of a trickster. While he gives gifts, the trickster’s offerings come with strings attached. A few years back our ancestors were gifted with a new animal and this changed the world.
The lead in the novel is a youth named “Out of Breath” who dreams of a shining giant- a powerful white animal that races like a ghost through the desert as easily and as quickly as water runs through one’s fingers.

His community tells him his visions are bizarre and in any case he should not be having them since he is too young. But he is relentless and driven and leaves to go find the animal out in the desert.

He comes back with a magnificent beast, a bony and tall creature that calls itself a Horse. Everyone in the “Red Earth City” is afraid of the animal except for the willful and beautiful “Wants the Moon” who wants to ride on its back.
Together, “Wants the Moon” and “Out of Breath” will prove that the Horse is a creature that will transform their civilization.

“Children of the Horse” by Amanda Cockrell tells the story of the descendants of “Horse Bringers” who have become legends.

“Dances the Bold” and her brother “Blue Jay” have been chosen to go on a quest to the west, where they are to locate some new horses the community needs.

Along with the son of the “Dry River People’s” chief “Spotted Colt,” and “Mud Turtle” his friend, they head to the Westerly lying cities where they will encounter a world very different from their own.
In the cities, people make their homes in boxes, regardless of the weather while the men disdain warriors and take pride in weaving.

Hardly anyone is interested in horses until a strange group of foreign, pale men come through the various cities, asking about mysterious cities full of gold.

They come bearing heavy sticks that spit out a fire that kills. They also know the magic of riding horses, which they obtain from a source different than the Horse Bringers’ legacy.

Using Coyote the trickster as their guide, they will have quite the adventure across the plains traversing the boundary between death and life, as they confront a danger that could just destroy them all.

Amanda Cockrell’s “The Rain Child” opens at a time when the Cities in the West have been ravaged by white-skinned invaders.

Only the tribes of Grass have managed to escape slaughter and invasion, even though they have been struck by tragedy of another kind.

“Flute Dog” who is the granddaughter of “Grandmother Weevil,” is a young woman of the Buffalo Horn tribe who is left devastated by the loss of her husband. He died when he was thrown from his house and was trampled while they were hunting buffaloes.
Looking for a horse, “Flute Dog” stumbles upon a pregnant woman all alone in the wilds. Unfortunately, she dies while giving birth, and “Flute Dog” adopts the kid and treats her like her own.

However, Rain Child cannot fit into the tribe but is an expert at training and riding her mother’s horses. Angry and rebellious, she will go off into the wilderness looking for a wild horse and discover an iron pot that will leave her tribe in fear and awe.
The pot was gifted by “Coyote” and is just part of the charmed treasures he will use to lure the tribe into the northern lands.

It is here that Coyote will put into motion his plan marked by betrayal, love, and magic, which could change the destiny of the Horse people forever.