Maradaine: the story of the spellbinding port city filled with tales of murder and magic, secrets and lies, policemen and vigilantes, misfits and criminals, scholars and sidekicks, conspiracies and deadly danger. This enthralling fantasy saga consists of four parallel series, set amid the bustling streets and crime-ridden districts of the fantastical city called Maradaine.
The Maradaine Saga is an epic fantasy like no other, consisting of four series set in the fantastical city each of which follows a set of heroes in the fantastical city of Maradaine. The stories braid and twine together into a larger whole. Four series, with four sets of heroes fighting injustices in their part of the city, each one focusing on different kind of storytelling, from superheroics to police procedurals to heists to political thrillers.
Phase One of the Maradaine Saga is complete, with four trilogies in each series.
It is recommended that the best reading order is in-world chronological.
The first series, the Thorn of Maradaine, begins with The Thorn of Dentonhill, in which Veranix Calbert, magic-student-by-day, vigilante-by-night fights his personal war against a drug kingpin. Library Journal said, “Veranix is Batman, if Batman were a teenager and magically talented.” This series melds epic fantasy with super heroics, as Veranix’s adventures continued with The Alchemy of Chaos, where he must balance his academic responsibilities with stopping a lethal prankster and evading three determined assassins. The third novel, The Imposters of Aventil, has him deal with multiple pretenders creating trouble in his name, which puts him on a collision course with the inspectors of the Maradaine Constabulary.
The second series, The Maradaine Constabulary, is a police procedural series focusing on two inspectors, ex-spy Satrine Rainey and untrained mage Minox Welling. Their partnership— built on trust, intelligence and respect— is forged in A Murder of Mages, solving a series of ritualized murders of powerful magic users. Their teamwork continues in An Import of Intrigue, where the death of a foreign dignitary sparks riots and unrest in the city’s alien quarter, and in A Parliament of Bodies, where they must stop a madman who has staged an atrocity of death and horror on the Parliament floor. Publishers Weekly wrote of this series, “Maresca offers something beyond the usual high fantasy fare, with a wealth of unique and well-rounded characters, a vivid setting, and complicatedly intertwined social issues that feel especially timely.”
The third series, The Streets of Maradaine, are crime and heist thrillers, starting with The Holver Alley Crew, which Barnes & Noble Fantasy Blog called, “the perfect caper novel”. The reformed Rynax Brothers, Asti and Verci, lose everything in a fire and have to return to their old lives of crime to stay afloat, forming a crew of loyal friends and neighbors to pull off a desperate heist that turns into plan for revenge. The Rynax Brothers returned in Lady Henterman’s Wardrobe, where their quest for vengeance leads them to pulling a heist on a nobleman’s holiday party, and the dark secrets of the eponymous Lady Henterman. Then in The Fenmere Job, the Rynaxes and their crew find themselves facing off against a drug kingpin and a mage circle, which puts them in the line of fire of The Thorn.
The fourth series, The Maradaine Elite, is a political thriller series starting with The Way of the Shield. Dayne Heldrin and Jerinne Fendall, hoping to become members of an elite warrior order, are made pawns in political games as they try to stop a revolutionary madman, and then in The Shield of the People, the integrity of the election is under siege, and they fight to root out the corruption that has taken hold of Maradaine. SF&F Reviews called it, “a compelling, convincing work of fantasy, and a worthy addition to the rich tapestry that is the works of Maradaine.