Holly Black
Holly Black is an author.
Black has spent more than twenty years writing about faeries who are not remotely charming, and the consistency is the argument. Tithe, part of the debut trilogy she called the Modern Faerie Tales, dropped a teenage girl into a courtly underworld that treated her as a resource. The Folk of the Air books, the ones that made her a fixture on bestseller lists, do the same thing with far more architecture and a sharper protagonist, running from The Cruel Prince through The Wicked King to The Queen of Nothing, with The Stolen Heir picking the world up again from a different angle.
The skill worth naming is her handling of power. Her heroines are usually outmatched, and the plots turn on bargains, wording and obligation rather than on fights, which is exactly why the faeries work: a species that cannot lie makes a much better antagonist than one that can.
She also co-created The Spiderwick Chronicles with Tony DiTerlizzi, a children's series adapted into a film in 2008 and a television version in 2023 that brought her a Children's and Family Emmy nomination. She has won a Nebula and a Newbery Honor, which is an unusual pair of awards for one writer to hold.
Books (26)
- The Queen of Nothing (2019)
- Tithe (2002)
- The Stolen Heir (2023)
- The Darkest Part of the Forest (2015)
- Doll Bones (2013)
- The Spiderwick chronicles (2009)
- Red glove (2011)
- Black Heart (2012)
- The Spiderwick Chronicles (2003)
- The Iron Trial (2014)
- The Spiderwick Chronicles (2004)
- The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004)
- Zombies vs. Unicorns (2010)
- My True Love Gave to Me (2014)
- The Eternal Kiss (2009)
- The Wicked King (2025)
- The Cruel Prince (2023)
- The Golden Tower (2019)
- The Magisterium Series 4 Books Set (2017)
- Magisterium. Tom 2. Miedziana rękawica (2016)
- The Copper Gauntlet (2015)
- La prueba de hierro (2014)
- Magisterium (2014)
- The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (2013)
- Welcome to Bordertown (2011)
- Geektastic (2009)
Where to start with Holly Black
The Cruel Prince is the entry point and there is no serious case for another. It is the sharpest book she has written, the court politics are properly plotted rather than decorative, and it sets up The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing as a trilogy that improves instead of diluting. The Stolen Heir returns to the same world for readers who want more of it.
Tithe is the rawer, earlier version of the same instincts, much more visibly a 2000s urban fantasy, and best read second so you can see what twenty years of craft did to the material. The Darkest Part of the Forest is the strongest standalone. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown swaps faeries for vampires and is a great deal better than that sentence makes it sound. Younger readers should go to The Spiderwick Chronicles instead.
The Folk of the Air books, in order
The series that made courtly faerie fantasy the default again. Jude is mortal, outmatched and willing to be genuinely ruthless, which is why the books work where a hundred imitators do not. Start at The Cruel Prince and read straight through; the sequels get sharper rather than softer.
Early Black, when the faeries lived in car parks
Before the courts and the crowns she wrote urban fantasy that was grubby, mean and much closer to the old folklore. Tithe is the one that started it and still the nastiest, and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is her vampire novel, which is far better than that description makes it sound.
Holly Black for younger readers, with the rules intact
The children's books do not soften the bargain: the fae are still dangerous and the deals still bind. The Spiderwick Chronicles is the famous one and holds up completely, Doll Bones is a quieter horror story about growing out of play, and the Magisterium books are the school-of-magic take.