Below is the complete list of Kim Harrison’s Madison Avery books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Madison Avery Books
About Madison Avery
Kim Harrison’s Madison Avery series is a completed young adult supernatural trilogy built around a teenager who discovers that dying does not necessarily remove her from either high school or the struggle over her own future. The books combine paranormal fantasy, humor, romance, and questions about fate and free will, following Madison as she becomes caught between opposing groups of supernatural reapers who disagree over whether people should be allowed to make potentially destructive choices.
Madison’s story actually begins before the first full-length novel. The novella “Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper,” published in the anthology Prom Nights from Hell, introduces the supernatural world and the disastrous prom night that changes her existence. Harrison identifies the story as the introduction to the Madison Avery universe, while the three novels form the principal series.
Once Dead, Twice Shy picks up after seventeen-year-old Madison has been killed by Seth, a dark reaper. Rather than disappearing into the afterlife, she steals his unusual black amulet, which allows her soul to maintain the physical appearance and sensations of a living body. Her actual body remains missing, leaving Madison in the peculiar position of continuing school, work, friendships, and life with her father while technically being dead.
Barnabas, a light reaper, becomes her supernatural mentor and protector. Through him, Madison learns that dark reapers intervene when the probable future suggests someone will make disastrous choices, killing the person early in an attempt to preserve the soul. Light reapers oppose that philosophy and attempt to protect those same people, arguing that human beings deserve the opportunity to choose differently. Madison quickly discovers that the conflict is more complicated than a simple battle between obvious good and evil.
That disagreement becomes the heart of Early to Death, Early to Rise. Madison unexpectedly inherits the position of dark timekeeper, placing her nominally in charge of the very system whose methods she rejects. Rather than accepting that certain people are destined to make the wrong choices, she wants to prove that they can change when given the opportunity. Nakita, a dark reaper who initially approaches her duties with absolute confidence in fate, becomes an increasingly important part of Madison’s unconventional team alongside Barnabas and Madison’s human friend Josh.
Something Deadly This Way Comes develops Madison’s responsibilities further as she begins experiencing glimpses of possible future events connected to threatened souls. Her conflict with Ron, the light timekeeper, increasingly turns the supernatural struggle into a philosophical argument: whether knowing a probable future justifies deciding someone’s fate before that future actually happens. Harrison confirmed the novel as the third and final volume of Madison’s adventures.
The trilogy’s supernatural mechanics are therefore closely connected to its coming-of-age theme. Madison is surrounded by ancient beings who claim to understand destiny, yet she repeatedly insists that a teenager—or anyone else—cannot be reduced to the worst decision they might someday make. Her unusual condition also gives familiar adolescent concerns a comic supernatural twist: she still worries about school, her father, dating Josh, and fitting in while simultaneously learning how to manage an amulet, reapers, timekeepers, and a job she never wanted.
Compared with Harrison’s adult Hollows novels, Madison Avery is shorter, lighter, and aimed at a younger audience, but it shares her interest in heroines who challenge the rules of supernatural institutions. Across the trilogy, Madison progresses from an accidental victim of the reaper system into someone determined to change its assumptions, making the larger story less about escaping death than proving that choice can matter even when fate claims the outcome is already decided.