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Katherine Arden is an American author that writes historical fantasy and YA. Born in 1987 in Austin, Texas, Arden went to Rennes, France during her Junior year in high school. She eventually landed a position at Middlebury College, Vermont where she pursued French and Russian literature.
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Order of Winternight Trilogy Series
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Bear and the Nightingale | 2017 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | The Girl in the Tower | 2017 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | The Winter of the Witch | 2019 | Description / Buy |
Order of Small Spaces Series
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Small Spaces | 2018 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | Dead Voices | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | Dark Waters | 2021 | Description / Buy | |
| 4 | Empty Smiles | 2022 | Description / Buy |
Order of Katherine Arden Standalone Novels
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Warm Hands of Ghosts | 2024 | Description / Buy |
Katherine Arden Anthologies
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unfettered III: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy | 2019 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | Twice Cursed | 2023 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | The Secret Romantic's Book of Magic | 2025 | Description / Buy |
After spending quite a bit of time in Moscow, Arden moved to Maui in Hawaii where she did various odd jobs to make ends meet. She left Hawaii for a few months to live and teach in France. But she came back to Maui before finally settling down to write.
Arden’s boredom pushed her to write fiction. Even as a student, she was quite restless. Once she graduated, the author was planning on using her French and Russian Degree to get a job as an interpreter.
But Arden began to question her future. She couldn’t figure out what she wanted from life. So she decided to take a break by moving to Hawaii. She hoped that her time on the island would spark a few new ideas about her future and career that she could pursue.
But even with all the jobs she did to earn a living, it did not take long for boredom to set it. People that have read the author’s debut novel know that the heroine of the book is a girl called Vasya. They might be surprised to learn that the character was inspired by a real person, the daughter of a Ukrainian family that lived on a farm next to Arden’s home in Hawaii.
Arden and Vasya spent a lot of time together. When the author started writing to stave off the boredom, she made Vasya her heroine. Back then, Arden had no idea what she was doing.
Her first few drafts were horrific. But they did not stop her from writing because, at the time, Arden wasn’t particularly serious about her craft. When she finally realized she liked writing, she decided to complete her manuscript, if only to see what would happen after.
It took the author a while to make sense of the story she wanted to tell. Arden was still restless. She had attempted to settle in Texas only to journey back to Hawaii. After landing a one-room yurt, Arden had to tolerate a roommate that was always high. Though, the girl’s activities did not disrupt the author’s attempts to finish her manuscript.
Even after she went to France to teach, she kept making steady progress. By the time she finished her debut novel, Arden wasn’t confident that she could get a publisher to accept it. But she had very little money at the time and she had nothing to lose by submitting it.
The book deal she landed in the early 2010s changed everything for the author because it placed some money in her pocket, enough for Arden to travel to her heart’s content. She wrote her second novel during her travels.
Katherine Arden Awards
The author received John W. Campbell, Locus, and Vermont Award nominations for her first novel.
Best Katherine Arden Books
The writer’s influences include Patrick O’Brien, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Diana Gabaldon, to mention but a few. Arden’s best novels include:
Bear and the Nightingale: Vasilisa lives in the isolated Wilderness of Russia. The girl spends her nights sitting around a warm fire and listening to stories about the frost demon who waits in the dark to claim the foolish and the damned.
Vasilisa was happy. But then she lost her mother. Her father thought that he could make things better by bringing a new wife home. But when he went to Moscow to accomplish the task, he came back with a gift, one given to him by a mysterious stranger; a gift that was connected to the evil creatures that had started to prowl the forests around Vasilisa’s home.
Girl in the Tower: Vasilisa knows what she is. She understands that the creatures she can see are real, regardless of what everyone says. Vasilisa won a great battle. With the help of Morozko, the frost demon, she banished a great evil. But she paid dearly for her victory.
Now, Vasilisa must seek out a new life as far from her home as possible. No one trusts her. Even worse, her guardians are determined to condemn Vasilisa to a harsh life in the convent. Her only option is to run away. But the world beyond Vasilisa’s village is dangerous and she is not prepared for the trouble awaiting her.
When Does The Next Katherine Arden book come out?
Katherine Arden doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The Warm Hands of Ghosts and was released on February, 13th 2024.