The Nine Realms Books In Order

Publication Order of The Nine Realms Books

Nine Realms Series by Sarah Kozloff
Author Sarah Kozloff writes the “Nine Realms” series of epic fantasy novels. The series consists of four novels, which were released over the course of four months in 2020, starting with “A Queen in Hiding” and concluding with “The Cerulean Queen”. The books were released by TOR.

The series stars Cerulia, the princess and rightful queen of Weirandale. At the very beginning of the first book, she is only eight years old. The books follow her as she tries to regain her throne.

The books are set in Ennea Mon, “The World of The Nine”. It is a pre-modern setting, without electricity and is set in a second world.

In the year 2012, when she was teaching a senior seminar on American Women Directors, she realized that neither the films nor books of “Lord of the Rings” could pass the Bechdel Test. That summer, she picked up her laptop and began imagining a world that was waiting for the return of the queen. She began writing in the year 2013, and had no idea of how to do it.

She only had the haziest of plans when she began. The book grew organically, and Sarah never realized that she could be creative. Landing herself an agent and publisher took her some doing, but she’s had a lucky journey, compared to many other authors.

She carried her laptop with her everywhere she went for the next two years, during which time she was in an imagination haze. From here, she learned that writing is really re-writing, and there were times she would take a subplot from one book and drop it into another.

Sarah says that having all four books written first was important to how they turned out. While revising, she could go back and plant little details in that would pay off later, establish little character dialogue tags, or even change certain character names.

From her original seed, everything changed. She never believed that characters could truly run away with the story, but has since learned that they do. Her character Cerulia bears little resemblance to Aragorn, whom Cerulia is based off of, and Ennea Mon isn’t anything like Middle-earth.

Little did she know that this leap into creative writing would spark a new career for her. From here, she wrote the “Nine Realms” series of books.

Sarah found “A Queen in Hiding” to be the most difficult of the books to write because it had to cover a lot of years and set up a world that was in conflict.

“A Queen in Hiding” is the first novel in the “Nine Realms” series and was released in the year 2020. Cerulia, the Princess of Weirandale, after having been exiled, orphaned, and hunted has to master the magic that is her birthright, become a merciless guerilla fighter, and turn into the queen she’s destined to be.

To do so, she has to win the favor of those spirits that play in mortal affairs. She also has to put together one unlikely group of rebels, and take the throne from one corrupt aristocracy whose rot’s spread throughout her entire kingdom.

Readers found this to be a solid opening to an ambitious saga of intrigue, magic, and heroism. Sarah delivers an ambitious, literary, and epic in scope first novel and she makes great use of classic fantasy tropes to create a cinematic and compelling tale.

“The Queen of Raiders” is the second novel in the “Nine Realms” series and was released in the year 2020. The soldiers from Oromondo have invaded the Free States, and leave behind a wake of death and misery. Thalen, a young scholar, is able to survive and gathers up a tiny group of guerilla fighters for a one-way mission into the heart of one enemy land.

Unconsciously guided by the elemental Spirits of Ennea Mon, Cerulia’s drawn to the Land of the Fire Mountains so she can join Thelan’s Raiders, where she’s going to learn the price of war.

Sarah gets the reader immersed in this magical war-torn world immediately. She weaves a complicated and multiple perspective story that keeps her readers riveted, with some great character development and growth, and intense action.

“A Broken Queen” is the third novel in the “Nine Realms” series and was released in the year 2020. Time is able to heal all wounds, however not all wounds are visible.

Cerulia, who barely survived her ordeal in Oromondo and was scarred by its Fire Spirit, gets taken to a recovery house in Wyeland to heal up from the trauma. While in a ward with others that are each bound to serve one another, she learns that not all scars are visible ones, and dying can be done with both acceptance and grace.

Even though she would like to remain in this place of healing, is she ever going to be able to leave the peace that she has found in order to retake her throne?

The story gets better and even more complex, emotional, and intriguing with each page. Cerulia continues to grow as a character and readers enjoy following her along during her journey. This is the most emotional of these three novels, and the final hundred pages came close to bringing readers to crying.

“The Cerulean Queen” is the fourth novel in the “Nine Realms” series and was released in the year 2020. The one true queen of Weirandale has returned.

Cerulia has just done the impossible and regained her throne. But, she has also inherited a council of traitors, a war with Oromondo, and a realm that’s in chaos.

Now that she is a master to her Gift, to return the order to her kingdom she will use all that she has learned: compassion, humility, leadership, selflessness, and the necessity of ruthlessness.

Kozloff has got some great instincts when it comes to pacing, and the novel flies by with a tremendous mix of emotional, character-developing beats and action sequences. The villains are never one-note, and her heroes are both fallible and complex. This is a worthwhile and enjoyable conclusion to an immersive series.