Seraphina (2012)
Seraphina is a 2012 secrets book written by Rachel Hartman.
Dragons and humans keep an uneasy peace in Goredd, held together by treaty and mutual suspicion, and the dragons who walk among people fold their true selves into human shape. Seraphina is a gifted court musician carrying a secret that could ruin her if the wrong person learned it. When a death in the royal family points toward dragonkind, she is drawn into the investigation and pulled closer to the court than her hidden life can safely bear. Rachel Hartman writes precise, melodic fantasy about passing, identity, and the quiet cost of holding a truce together.
Quick answers
What is Seraphina about?
Dragons and humans keep an uneasy peace in Goredd, held together by treaty and mutual suspicion, and the dragons who walk among people fold their true selves into human shape. Seraphina is a gifted court musician carrying a secret that could ruin her if the wrong person learned it. When a death in the royal family points toward dragonkind, she is drawn into the investigation and pulled closer to the court than her hidden life can safely bear. Rachel Hartman writes precise, melodic fantasy about passing, identity, and the quiet cost of holding a truce together.
When was Seraphina published?
Seraphina was published in 2012.
Who made Seraphina?
Seraphina was written by Rachel Hartman.
Similar books
Explore Seraphina guides
Seraphina in our writing
- Companion guide: Dragons
- Companion guide: YA Fantasy & Science Fiction: The Complete Guide
A few thoughts on Seraphina
Seraphina's world of Dragons living in disguise beside wary humans pairs with How to Train Your Dragon, which turns the same fragile truce between two peoples into flight and friendship. For morally tangled fantasy where humans and inhuman folk negotiate a strained coexistence, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt hits the same nerve at a darker register.
Dragons who can pass as human, and the tension that creates
Seraphina hides a secret that only works because Goredd's dragons can fold themselves into human shape, and this cluster shares that same uneasy coexistence. How to Train Your Dragon reworks the same premise into an unlikely friendship; Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon both put dragons at the center of a fragile political order; Brisingr follows its own dragon and rider through a kingdom at war.
Hidden identities that would get you killed if discovered
Seraphina spends her whole life passing as fully human, and these books share that same constant danger of discovery. Fire follows a woman feared and hunted for a gift she never asked for; Daughter of Smoke and Bone hides its heroine's true nature from both warring sides; An Ember in the Ashes and Children of Blood and Bone both follow people who survive an empire by staying unseen.
Royal courts where the crown itself is never safe
The court in Seraphina survives on a treaty that could collapse at any moment, and these books all circle that same fragile throne. Graceling follows a woman whose deadly gift makes her a threat to every king who meets her; Three Dark Crowns splits a crown three ways and lets the fighting decide; The Young Elites and The Girl of Fire and Thorns both hand their heroines a kingdom's survival.